A Bolt Out Of The Blue
by Ryuuza Kochou
Summary: There are so many kinds of energy who's to say it only has one purpose? After the All Spark was destroyed, wierd things start happening to Sam. Nearly electrocuting Bumblebee is just the beginning. 2007 movieverse.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Transformers belong to Hasbro, and lately, Micheal Bay & Paramount. This is not for profit. There are also several song lyrics used in the fic without permission that belong to various artists and not the author; but again, not for profit.

Warnings: Violence, mild bad language (teen foul mouth variety)

Authors Notes: It's been such a long time since I saw a movie that stoked me so, but I thoroughly enjoyed Transformers. So much so this started cooking in my head as I left the theatre. I asked myself – can the Cube affect all things, not just technology? Why? Or, perhaps more accurately, Why Not?

Be warned, there _are_ spoilers here. Only vaguely in this chapter, but you might want to see the movie first. It'll make for good entertainment. Really.

Please, read and review. And don't worry – I'm not good at lasting angst. It'll be a _happy _story. Promise.

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Prologue

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First day back at school. It seemed so…so…Sam didn't know…._normal_. No, that wasn't quite the way to put it. For Sam, talking with giant robots from outer space was becoming normal. School was full of teenagers brimming with angst and enthusiasm (both at once. No, seriously Ratchet, they really _are_. It's hard to explain. Um…you know how you said humans aren't logical? Well, we kinda learn that when we're teenagers. And it sticks.). It seemed…well, not _abnormal_, just mundane. Colourless.

It would have had more appeal if Mikaela was there with him. But the government had been very grateful or her father model prisoner, because he had been released a few days ago. Mikaela and her dad had gone up to a summer cabin out of state for a little while. Sam figured, quite shrewdly, that they had a lot to say to each other and was willing to swallow loneliness for her sake.

He parked in the school parking lot and restrained himself from telling Miles not to fiddle with the radio. He still didn't know how personal Autobots get about that sort of thing, and he'd hate to have to explain to Miles just why he'd been ejected through the passenger side window.

Miles was going on about the latest news – ie, Mission City, War-Game Gone Wrong, Newest Jets Go Haywire etc, etc, and so forth. Sam couldn't believe anyone, especially the people on the streets there, had actually _bought_ that, but Captain Lennox had said that that was the point. It wasn't about what anyone said; it was about what anyone could _prove_.

Sam had found himself on Lennox's special ops team's mailing list, for some reason. It was immensely flattering (and slightly worrying) that they really did consider him to be a soldier after everything that happened – even just an honorary one. Messages bounced back and forth between the team, Sam, Mikaela and the 'Bots. Sam guessed that made him a sort of ambassador. The 'Bots didn't like talking to the government, but they _would_ talk to Sam.

Speaking of which… "Miles? I'll catch up in a minute, okay?"

"Yeah, you got it," Miles levered himself out. "You're gonna have to tell me sometime, bro."

Sam stared at him.

"You know, you being away for two weeks, landing Mikaela, and trading up your POS Cheapo Used for this sweet ride," Miles snorted. "After having the Used for just a week. I'm a freak, but I'm not stupid. You're crap at keeping secrets, I can _see _it."

"Yeah, I know man," Sam sighed. "It's not trust or anything. It's just…really, really complicated."

"Okay, bro," Miles shrugged. "Whenever you're ready."

"….Thanks, man."

Sam felt bad as he watched Miles walk away. He felt like something a slug would scrape off it's slime trail.

The radio whirred. "…_As the years go by, our friendship will never die. You gonna see it's out des-ti-ny, You've got a friend in me. You've got a fri-end in me._"

"Yeah, that's me and Miles, Bee," Sam nodded sadly. "We've been buds since we were eating worms. I'm gonna have to tell him sometime. I haven't exactly been treating him like a friend these last few weeks."

The radio switched to Darren Hayes "…_How your lies have buried me, But I forgive you_…"

"I hope so, Bee," Sam patted the dash affectionately. "Hey, why are you doing radio speak? I thought your voice was…"

Whitney Houston crooned "_Hurts so bad (hurts me so, gonna schoop now), Hurts so bad (Hurts me so)_."

"Oh. You wanna go visit Ratchet?"

"…_the local council states that there is nothing that can be done…it's a price malfunction!! …Sometimes it takes time it takes time to…_"

Sam rubbed his fingers over the dash comfortingly. "Okay bud, if you're sure. Are you going to be okay just sitting out here all day? You don't have to hang around, you could just go off and…" Sam paused. What did Autobots do with time off? "do stuff."

"_Could you believe that I could be your guardian angel?_" Lee Ryan demanded.

Sam laughed. "I dunno, Bee, angels tend to be more…feathery." But if he had to put his faith in any guardian, he'd take fifteen feet of cannon toting metal over a white robe and a halo any day. He opened the door. "Besides, the baddest things in there are teachers with no sense of humour. Not exactly lethal, ya know? What's the worst that could happen?"

Famous last words, Witwicky, Sam thought to himself as Trent's jacket clad elbow swung in and slammed his locker door shut, nearly catching his fingertips.

"Whoops, sorry man," the big jock's sweaty face grinned unrepentantly. He innocently twisted back around from 'accidentally' putting his elbow against Sam's locker to talking to his group of hulking friends.

"No, 'sorry' is for the first time," Sam snapped out. "The second time the phrase it 'what the hell is your _problem_'! Or is all that football-based brain damage giving you memory loss too?"

Sam cursed his mouth. How many times had the crap been kicked out of him because the words shot out before he could think to rein them in? A _lot_, that's how many. But after everything that had happened lately, Sam Witwicky didn't find fear in a puny six foot tall, flesh and bone human. Autobots and Special Ops – Trent and company didn't stack up well in comparison.

"Real funny, Wichity," The guy slammed a hand against the locker row.

"_Witwicky_. And if you got something to say, line up the words in your two brain cells and _say it_." It was the tone. Captain Lennox and Optimus used it all the time. It contained the promise of trouble if not obeyed. It was an order voice and it was all in the delivery.

Trent sneered. "Okay Wiwitchy, you think I got a problem? I heard some stupid rumours around about you and Mikaela. Stuff like she was going out with a loser like you. You certainly have a lot to offer her, right; what with your cheese sting arms and your crap-fest car and your empty bank account that had you hocking your stuff just to get by. Went to your eBay page _Ladiesman_. Who are you trying to kid? How much is the rental on the car you're pretending is yours out in the lot? You sell yourself on the street to get the money? Are you somebody's _bitch_, Wierdwickety, cause it's probably the only thing you're good at." Trent prodded Sam with an unfriendly finger. "You _stay_ _away_ from Mikaela. Be a good bitch, or I'll take you out and neuter you – not that that's make much difference, right?" His friends all sniggered.

Sam, bored, opened his locker. That was the worst they could do? They should try having a heart-to-heart with Megatron. "Really? You _own_ Mikaela, right? She's just another shiny car in your garage? 'Cause, you know, last time I checked, she was her own person. In fact," Sam got his books out, ignoring the guy's glare. "Last time I checked, she would rather walk home ten miles than get in your shiny new truck which, by the way, is kind of a hugely unsubtle overcompensation. You get mag wheels and you are whining about scratching the chrome? What kind of moron buys an off road truck and is scared to go off road?" Sam slammed his locker closed, packing his books in his bag. He felt his anger skyrocketing a lot faster than it usually did. He'd spent the last few weeks either dodging cannons or getting debriefed by Agent 'Paranoia' Simmons and people like him. There were entire races out there in the stars getting wiped out in a war, and the human race might be next. Sam had enough on his mind, he didn't need to handle an ass like Trent. "How would it ever have worked out between you two anyway? You can't stand any girl smarter than you are. But, you know, stuff growing in my shower is smarter than you are."

A meaty hand grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him up from packing his backpack. "What was that, Witgeekity?

Sam's hands snapped up and grabbed the offending wrist, clenching his fingers around it. He kept his stance wide and his grip solid. "You wanna start something?" Sam snarled, twisting the grip loose. It didn't matter that he only came up to the hulk's chin, he was holding his ground unflinchingly. His hands started to tingle as his grip hardened. "Right here, right now?"

The hallway was still fairly crowded and everyone was watching. It was a rare sight to see skinny Sam Witwicky challenge the guard of the football team. Trent was taken aback. He was used to people backing down. He was used to Sam backing down, throwing out all sorts of stupid excuses that proved what a pussy he was. This was a different Sam. He was steelier, harder and poised.

But the big footballer's pride wouldn't let him back down. He shoved Sam hard, sending him back against the opposite row of lockers. "Yeah, I do Witweakling," Trent laughed. "You're such a bitch. You're all talk and no ac-"

The breath was driven from his body as Sam's foot hit his solar plexus. _Hard_. The kid had used the opposite locker wall to brace his body and slammed Trent with the full force of his runners legs. Not only was Trent sent flying back against the lockers, he actually slid down them, landing in an ungainly heap on the floor, gasping and coughing past the knot of agony that was his diaphragm.

There was a dead, shocked silence. To anyone's knowledge, this had never actually happened before. Trent was down – _down_, as in _floored_ – and Sam was standing. "Things change, Trent." Sam spoke flatly.

The bell ringing shattered the tableau. The students all began to scatter, chattering excitedly at what just happened. Trent's friends bent to help him off the floor. He shook them off angrily, still coughing and gasping. "You're _dead_, Witwicky!"

He lunged forward, but Sam was agile. He ducked around the first punch and got away from the wall of lockers. Unfortunately, he was outnumbered. One of Trent's buddies grabbed him, swung him round and slammed him face first into the lockers, so hard the vent mesh cut into his face. Trent's fist slammed into his kidneys from behind. Sam gasped as the pain exploded.

"Not so tough now, huh? Huh?" The fists kept coming.

Sam got one arm free and sent it back like a piston. It connected with something hard enough for the joint to burn. There was a yell, and the restraining grip loosened enough for Sam to struggle free. He didn't even pause to scoop up his backpack; he just ran for it. Parking lot, third row back. Bumblebee.

"Where you goin', Witwussy, where you goin'?" Trent yelled as he and his henchmen gave chase.

Out of here, Sam decided. This wasn't a fight he could win, or even draw. His back burned, his face was wet from bloody cuts, his heart was hammering so hard onto his ribs it felt like it was being bruised.

And then a horn blared. Squealing around a row of cars, his bright yellow, stylish and currently infuriated guardian rolled into their row behind the chasing boys, headlights set at a menacing brightness. "_Back off, back off bitch! Down in the gutter, dyin' in the ditch. You better back off, back off bitch!_" The song was so loud it actually rattled the windows of the other cars in the lot.

The footballers all spun around, backing away from the blaring, revving Camaro.

"Go Bee," Sam muttered, grinning slightly. Then his amusement faded.

Trent had picked up a rock from somewhere as he chased after Sam. Now he hefted it in his hand like he was going to make a pass, grinning cruelly. "You think you'll get the deposit back when there a big freaking hole in the windscreen, tough guy?" he sneered.

Sam's heart jolted. Something white hot blasted him all the way to his bones. What had started as a slight ache in chest distilled agonisingly, and spread through his muscles like hot ice, winding him like a spring and superheating him. It happened so fast and so furiously that he only had time to open his eyes to nearly full whiteness. "NO!"

Whatever it was exploded out of Sam, knocking out windows and mirrors in cars around him. From overhead sparks flew and came down in a rain of burning light from the power lines, blue arcs were jumping and dancing between the cables. They sprang loose from Sam, bouncing and arcing across cars and poles and streetlights, blowing out bulbs and throwing glass shrapnel around like bullets. Lighting bolts as thickset as Sam inscribed giant flickering arches in the air, taking out the windows of the school complex and flash burning off paint.  
Sam screamed as his hands felt the burn of the crackling bolts earthing in a wide circle around him. Bumblebee sped past the screaming and retreating teens, making a beeline for Sam. One of the bolts reached out and stuck the yellow 'Bot.

Sam fainted.

A few minutes later he woke up. His chest felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. His muscles twitched and cramped tortuously, and his hands stung and burned. His breath was like razors in his chest. Somehow, he forced himself over and got to his knees.

Around him electrical wires lay on the ground like giant pieces of dropped string. The ground was covered with glass, and smoke rose from a dozen tiny fires started by the sparks.

"Oh. My. God," Sam gasped, slumping. He had to …his brain was buzzing and blacking at the same time….he had to…he couldn't…he had to go. A picture of Optimus Prime flashed in his head, and it took his brain a minute to actually recognise it. The Autobots. They could help. He had to find the 'Bots. He crawled towards the nearest car, and for a moment didn't recognise it. He panicked until his fried mind connected the dots.

"Bee," Sam croaked. "We … have to go…call…others…"

Silence.

"Bee?"

Silence. There was a crackle and hiss, the smell of burning wire.

Horror drove the boy to his feet, his hands frantically on the hood. "Bee? Say something! Bee! Bumblebee! Come on, don't do this! Please! _Bee_!" Tears made tracks down Sam's face, his shaking body was now convulsed with agonised sobs. "Bee! Please, Bee, please…Bee! Nonono, Bee, you can't…I need…Bee…Bee! _BEE!_"

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	2. Chapter One: The Light in the Night

Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro, Paramount, Mr Bay and so on, and it quite right that they make the money and the author of this makes…sigh…none. The author doesn't own any song lyrics either.

Warnings: Mild bad language (soldier variety), adult themes, the supernatural

Authors Notes: Wow! Twenty five reviews as last count, I was stunned. I'm so glad people like this fic! So here's the second instalment. There's not much Sam in this part, because I couldn't work him in in a big way, and I couldn't get Optimus in at all without making it too long – sorry Optimus fans! The big guy is all lined up for the next part, so not to worry. I wanted to introduce the other characters in the story and do something with Bumblebee – you were all so worried about Bee.

Please, read and review – your comments are welcome.

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Chapter One – The Light in the Night

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Captain Will Lennox, Air Force, reflected that life was disgustingly good. He was alive, breathing and had all vital body parts. He was on leave – with nothing to do all day except lie in, lounge around, drink beer, watch TV and slowly, slowly wind down the ever-ready adrenaline plateau that turned every whisper in the night a perimeter breach, every backfire a direct assault. Then there was his wife, Sarah, whose love, compassion and patience a Neanderthal grunt like him had done utterly nothing to deserve. And then there was his baby, his perfect little jewel, whom he would swear on a stack of bibles was the best, brightest, quietest, cutest, most well behaved little girl in this or any other world.

Yep, no other life had anything to recommend it. Sarah, who knew Will a _lot_ better than he did, privately gave him another week before the boredom really started biting down. She was too glad to have him back to worry much, however.

Will had settled into bed after a long and mind boggling day of doing absolutely nothing; Sarah was peacefully asleep with her back to him. Will couldn't just fall into dreams so easily. Months after months of night duties and bouncing over time zones had totally screwed his internal clock. He lay in a light, alert doze, listening with half an ear to the baby monitor on the bedside table. The baby would sometimes make little noises as she went to sleep; it had taken him a few days to learn not to run down there at every little one. He was getting better.

He wasn't restless; there was just a lot he had to think about. Like _it was official, aliens were among us_. They were lacking in the green skin, big eyes, three finger department (but let's be fair, they did have antennas – they picked up satellite TV on them); they _did_ however have the ability to go from zero to mach two in four point two seconds, weaponry that could blast chunks out of the moon _and_ they had better cover than pods or seeds or whatever the hell aliens usually used. If someone had told the captain that heavy vehicles and sleek sports cars would be the harbingers of the invasion, he would have checked them into psych.

Go figure. But it was an idea that Lennox had to get used to.

"_Captain Lennox._"

Especially since one of them had, somehow or another, become a member of the family.

"Ironhide?" Lennox hissed.

Sarah sat up. She had taken to Ironhide quite nicely after some initial and understandable screaming. They way he had disarmed and reformed (very _emphatically_) a gang of carjackers one afternoon while Sarah and the baby were still in the car had done in two and a half minutes what years of careful diplomacy couldn't have managed. "How on earth did he…"

"_Sorry for transmitting via your youngling security system, but you have deactivated your detachable comm._"

"Cell phone," Lennox corrected automatically. The Autobots tried so hard to fit in. "It's called a cell phone, big guy, and there was a very good reason for turning it off."

Lennox realised that Ironhide couldn't possibly hear him at the same instant Ironhide replied. "_Leisure duties, indeed. However, we have a situation._"

"How the hell did you do that?" Will demanded, eyebrows shooting up. "Last time I check the secur-the baby monitor was strictly one way."

"_My scouting microphones can detect human heartbeats for several miles, Captain._" The rust bucket sounded amused.

"You can do that?" Sarah was wide eyed. "You _do_ do that?"

"_You watch the youngling your way, I'll watch her mine._"

Will opened his mouth. There were probably many things he should have said to that statement, but he couldn't think of one. So instead he substituted. "Situation?"

"_There are several non-locality vehicles approaching your base,_" Ironhide reported with the grim brevity of a professional soldier. "_Identification numbers being transmitted via their navigation systems do not exist on public records. Possibly members of your government's intelligence agencies._"

Shit. The feds were coming. "Any contact?" He couldn't believe he could say that to an alien with a straight face.

"_Negative. However, Ratchet has sent me an emergency communication. Bumblebee is in need of assistance. Ratchet is on route, Optimus has been informed but is further away. I am closest. He suggested I ask you to accompany in case of…human complications._"

_Shit _shit. Will didn't even realise he'd gotten a pair of khaki's on and already had one foot in a boot until he was reaching for the second one.

Sarah's hair was warm on his shoulders as she kissed the back of his neck. "Pick up some eggs and milk on the way back, will you?"

He didn't deserve her. He really didn't.

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Will actually hopped out to the black Topkick truck revving impatiently in his yard, stamping on his other boot as he took a flying leap into the open drivers door. Ironhide snapped it shut, neatly and narrowly avoiding clipping the letterbox with it.

"Whoa," Will managed to get upright in the seat as Ironhide swerved up the street.

"_Please fasten your seatbelt_."

"You're kidding, right? You actually have safety warnings in car mode?"

The big mech's engine rumbled, the approximation of a sigh. "_Captain, I don't want to be held up by the more mentally unstable of your enforcement officers. I'm going to go around them_."

The mentally unstable bit got a grin. A line of headlights lined both sides of the road leading to Will's home; looking like shriners next to Ironhide. "You don't want be caught up in the red tape parade, got it." The captain wisely reached for his seat belt.

The line of cars stopped. Suits got out.

Ironhide didn't.

The truck reared like a stallion, and, in some indefinable way that nevertheless made the Captain's teeth rattle, launched over them. They rumbled and bounced over two of the government sedans, the crunch of shattering glass and crumpling metal vibrated mildly through the cab.

"Ironhide! Human's aren't metal! They don't shrug off a crushing!"

"_No human presence in vehicles_," the Autobot sounded smug and slightly insulted. "_I am a soldier, not a slaughterer_."

Will glanced in the mirror, watched the silhouettes of people running like wet ants, the remaining cars were wheeling around. A thought occurred. "You call _that_ going around?"

"_Compared to other options_."

"Don't sound so happy about it, big guy," Will muttered. "You've pissed off people you can't shoot. Whoops, company," he added as a burnout tyre symphony squealed behind them. Sedan's were appearing on either side, horns and lights blaring, white hands in windows angrily signalling to stop.

"_Hang on_," Ironhide advised. Will gripped the armrest and overhead respectively as the truck took a corner, still accelerating, expertly using the swerve to pull off a hairpin turn and double back over the chasing sedans, scattering them.

"I guess it's not the feds that worry you," Will asked, bracing one leg to the back of the pedals.

"_No. The message from Ratchet concerns me more. Ratchet reported that Bumblebee had gotten a message to him, but that it was garbled. He fears some kind of attack._"

"Decepticons?" Will winced as the Autobot performed a perfect spin, abruptly changing their direction and charging across a playground. The sedans followed clumsily.

"_Impossible to confirm. Ratchet doesn't think so._"

"Why not?" Will asked grimly. Those things _really_ never died.

"_The Decepticons are not subtle_."

Which meant there'd be little pieces of Bumblebee all over the place if he'd been attacked. Ironhide sounded worried, insofar as a _truck_ with a set of nuclear cannons could sound worried. The big guy whirred around a roundabout and shot down a long straight road, relying now on speed to outdistance the chasers. The lights dwindled into the distance until they were nothing but specks, and then nothing at all.

Force of habit made Will lay his hands on the wheel. "Two things, big guy. One, where are we going, and two, do you have some alien version of a car phone somewhere in here? I don't want those jackasses storming the house. We've just gotten the baby into a pattern." The radio and dials all looked human enough, if you discounted the fact that the tuner had over two thousand frequency options.

"_Transmissions indicate they are not interested in your home base, just us_," Ironhide assured calmly, turning neatly onto the main road. "_They will probably end up at the same location we're heading to. Unfortunately. Human relations are-_"

"My mission for tonight," the captain ran fingers through his mussed hair, sighing. "You're all heart, big guy."

"_I'm all cannon, Captain,_" Ironhide corrected firmly. "_And your intelligence officers are pains in the aft. I do not break my word to my leader, so I can't go with my instincts and treat them as any other enemy._"

Will chuckled. "I'd pay to see that."

Ironhide rumbled. "_No need. I would do it for free_."

"Again, where are we going?" Will grinned.

The middle of nowhere, just outside the town where Sam lived, a lightly wooded and scrubby hiking wilderness that was murky and shadowy in the night dark.

There _was_ a fed cordon around the area, but news like Ironhide travelled fast. They piled over themselves getting out of the way as the Topkick roared past in a dust cloud. Will felt a slightly guilty but highly satisfactory thrill at that. They drove on through the slightly foggy murk, not on a trail but clearly not lost.

"_Here_," Ironhide rolled to a halt. "_I have been in contact with Ratchet. This is bad._"

"What?" Will got out of the cab, sensing without asking that Ironhide needed his two feet for this.

The sound of the Topkick transforming into the alien weaponry expert was just about the coolest sound in the world. Ironhide's towering form stood out against the stars. "Stand next to me, captain, and watch."

Ironhide was the one who actually moved, gently and precisely moving one of his giant legs within two inches of the Air Force captain. Warily, Will peered into the darkness. Out of the gloom came the tortured scream of an engine under pressure. What started as a whisper of background noise skyrocketed into roar in the space of seconds, and Will's eyes turned instinctively toward the sound, sharp vision picking out the headlights pinpricked in the tree-covered distance, but swelling.

"What…" was all Will managed to get out before the streak of neon yellow shot in and out of his vision almost before he could register it, followed by an air rip that knocked the captain into Ironhide's neatly placed leg. "The _Hell_!"

"It's Bumblebee," Ironhide explained tensely.

"The little guy? How _fast_ is he going?" Pretty damn fast, Will answered himself grimly. Fast enough for air friction to be a problem, judging from the trail of smoke that slowly vanished into the night.

"Too fast, Captain," Ratchet walked up from the opposite direction of Bumblebee's furrowed trail, and Will had to ask himself how the _hell_ a twenty foot robot could sneak up on _anyone_. "We must restrain him."

"Surger?" Ironhide hissed, and Will knew him well enough now to hear the true rage.

"Something like." Ratchet nodded.

"Decepticon _scum_." The cannons lit up on the Autobot's arms.

"Perhaps…not. They know out protocols for this. How would he have escaped?"

"Maybe that was the point, Ratchet. Quick deaths are the trademarks of _honest_ soldiers."

Will raised a hand. "Uh…can one of you kindly explain to the puny organic down here? If you want me to liaison, I'm gonna have to know this."

Ratchet leaned down, until he was nearly face-plate to nose with the human. "My apologies, captain. You are, of course, correct,"

"We ain't got time for lectures, Ratchet, not if what I heard from Bumblebee's engine was right."

The massive head in Will's vision tilted, whirring. "We have exactly seven point two eight minutes before he circles back to us. Enough time for an abridged version. Captain," Ratchet leaned back again. "There is much history involved our war with the Decepticons, as well you might guess. Insofar as it could be divided into stages, weaponry would be the defining characteristics of each era. Do you understand?"

"Yeah," Will sighed. "People are like that too."

"Indeed. There is no need for shame, Captain. You are, as you say, in good company," Ratchet looked into the middle distance. "There was an era…a _terrible_ era, Captain…when the Decepticons began using most evil weapons against us. Surge weapons. You are aware of the effects of power surges, are you not? Weapons up until then had been designed to destroy by damage. Surge weapons were designed to leave almost no visible mark, but to overload systems from within by injecting massive amounts of power. It was a weapon for internal, not external, damage. The worst of it was," Ratchet's voice shifted to a low, flat plateau of hell. "The _worst_ of it was, like your species internal bleeding, the victim did not die straight away. Do you understand? They would be awake and aware as their systems were inured with so much burning whiteness. It destroyed their minds before it ever broke them completely. We could not stop it at first. I saw so many comrades, firing blindly, unable to stop, unable to control themselves, unable to be saved. We were forced…to shoot them down, captain. Our own comrades, friends."

Will sucked in a breath.

"Those damn slagging Decepticons used to hang the empty shells on their strongholds," Ironhide hissed, hatred on every bolt. "They did not even allow the honour of the Memory Sleep."

The Memory Sleep. Optimus had gently explained about that while Ratchet…well, patched up Jazz's now empty machine shell. It was some sort of funeral rite, as near as Will understood it. Something about going into your personal memory bank of the deceased within some alien time span that was roughly six and a half weeks, and turning it into a permanent part of you...but it wasn't just _remembering_ the dead, it was also _communicating_ with them somehow through something called the Matrix. It had been a bit metaphysical, and Will hadn't caught all of it.

"What are you going to do?" Will felt a queasy knot forming inside him. "Save him…or stop him?"

"We _used_ to have to," Ratchet seemed to shake himself out of black memories. "We don't have to now. We designed a protocol to counteract the surge. If hit by a surger, the Autobot would instantly switch to sleep mode to protect their mind – and alt mode to save their bodies. Vehicle mode, you would call it. They would automatically retreat and use the excess energy in controlled bursts – through repetitive physical actions, and not shooting. Bumblebee was clearly hit, but his protocols took over beautifully. First sleep mode for his conscious mind and then…" There was a faint whining roar in the distance.

"He's _asleep_?" Will's jaw dropped. "He's sleepwalking? Sleepdriving? Whatever?"

"In a way, captain."

"So, what, we stand here and wait for him to wind down?"

"We can't," Ironhide broke in. "The protocol only delays the overload. The idea was you'd get enough time to be saved. Bee'll wear out his engine or run out of recharge long before he comes out of it. We gotta stop him."

"How?" Will waved a hand at the approaching engine noise. "It's like trying to catch a missile!"

"Protocols allow for energy to be used to defend oneself. We will pretend to attack," Ratchet explained. "He will still be asleep, but he will resume his attack form and fight with his calculatory centre."

"Machine, not soldier," Will summarised.

"Yeah," Ironhide stepped onto the black, stark tracks where Bumblebee had circled before. "I'll get him on the ground so Ratchet can do his thing."

Will was startled as he was scooped up suddenly by Ratchet. "You may wish for a safer vantage point, captain." Will found himself carefully deposited in the fork of a tree.

Ironhide was already lit up by the insensible Bumblebee's headlights.

It all happened so fast. Ironhide fired one of his cannons, hitting a spot precisely in front of the raging yellow car. The shockwave flipped the Camaro, and Bumblebee somersaulted, transforming on the fly – one turn a car and the next a robotic warrior, hitting Ironhide with the full force of his body as he flipped right side up and slalomed into the larger mech. The two rolled in a tussle, but Ironhide's cannons were dark. He only grappled with the furiously fighting and firing Bumblebee. One wild shot made the leaves above the Captain's head sizzle and glow, embers showering down like an early autumn. Ratchet was there all of a sudden, between the tree and the wrestling 'Bots, taking a hit but still managing to crunch a socket joint down on Bumblebee's cannon.

"That's going to leave a weld scar, I just know it."

"For Primus's sake, will you get his hydraulics?"

_Crash, bang, THUMP_. One of Bumblebee's hands fastened around Ironhide's faceplate and was squeezing. Metal groaned. Both of Ironhide's cannons were weighing down Bumblebee's torso and their legs tangled, throwing sparks. There was a tortured howl from Bumblebee's damaged voice capacitator, and an ear splitting whine coming from his joints and chest. There was burning light spilling from cracks and chinks in his armour. Ironhide twisted his head free of the vice gripping hand, the metal screeching loud enough to set teeth on edge.

"Easy, little 'un, easy," Ironhide crooned. In his tree, Will blinked. "Ratchet!" the big mech yelled at the rescue vehicle. "What're you doing, coming off the High Grade?"

"Almost…there," Ratchets hands moved in a blur, reaching in and tinkering between Ironhide's cannons to get at Bumblebee's chest, still pinning Bee's cannon with his knee joint.

The whine was getting louder, reaching sonic levels that made Will clap hands across his jaw lest his teeth explode.

"_Ratchet!_"

"I must do this right! Okay," Ratchet freed one had, reached into a compartment on his back and pulled out a slender cylinder which, like most things connect to the 'Bots, transformed into what looked like a cross between a rocket launcher and a super corkscrew. Will winced as the corkscrew end was jammed into Bumblebee's open chest plate. "Here we go!" He reached into Bumblebee's chest and hit something. "Power drain in three…"

Ironhide launched off Bumblebee, and Ratchet rolled sharply to the side.

"…two…"

Ironhide bounded a stride and for a moment Will thought he was going to plough right through the tree. Instead he hunkered down over the captain's position like a secret service agent. "Eyes shut, soldier!"

Will screwed his eyes shut but the light still seeped red under his eyelids. It carried with it the smell of burning that nearly choked him and a roar like naked high voltage. When Will dared slit his eyes open, a pillar of pure light like the finger of God towered in the sky, swirling clouds spinning out of the way as it travelled well past the atmosphere and shone into space. The ground shook with recoil.

_Far above, far, far above, something saw a flicker from the planet below. And scanned._

And then suddenly the light switched off, leaving purple and red after images in the eye. Ratchet rolled back and yanked the cylinder free of the yellow 'Bot's chest, leaving vivid scars on the metal. It was blackened and half blown apart. He bent over the stricken Bumblebee, hands working feverishly, pulling out tools from who knows where, closing over the wound with the frenzy of an ER doctor.

Ironhide straightened from his protective huddle. "Are you injured?"

Breathing hard, Will accepted the big mech's hand ride down. "No. Thanks big guy." Ironhide's back was heat scarred, his black paint job scaled and seared.

"You risked your life saving my leader in Mission City, captain. We are soldiers. No thanks required," Ironhide gruffly lowered Will to the ground.

"Is he…" Will didn't even know how to say it.

"He should be fine with a little work," Ironhide said firmly. "He _will_ be."

Radio signals and songs blared into the night as Bumblebee's blue optics suddenly lit up.

"…_electrified…my best…things that make you…word, word, word, word…price savings at…_" It was drowned out by a whine of sound.

"He's online?" Ironhide demanded.

"In a way," Ratchet grimly crunched down on flailing limbs. "He is, as the humans say, tall."

"Tall?" Will echoed blankly.

Ratchet pinned Bumblebee with a forearm, and flipped open a panel in the small mech's gut. Plunging a hand into the wires, Bumblebee's legs stopped moving. Ratchet's processor whirred. "Perhaps I've misused the term. I refer to the feelings of euphoria humans experience after ingesting certain poisonous chemicals."

Will ran that through his Autobot to Human translator. "Bumblebee's _high_?"

"Yes, that's the word."

Bumblebee's frame shuddered, and his head rolled from side to side agitatedly. "_Rising power, we'll raise the night, rising power, rising power, we'll raise the dead_…_it's a strange and mysterious power, captain…car 24, needs assistance, send backup!...I really need someone to help me, I'm going to…the worst plague in the twentieth…red,red,red…_" Bumblebee's head jerked again, and he spotted Will. He accessed another wavelength. "_Danger, Will Robinson! Danger Will Robin-! Danger Will! Danger Will!_"

"Easy, young one," Ratchet soothingly tried to reactivate sleep mode.

"Wait," Will approached carefully. "He's trying to say something. I think he's trying to tell me…" He help up a stop hand at Ratchet. "Bee?"

"…_Tonight on Supernatural… 'I need to find my brother, Sam'…the light, don't go into the light…tonight on CNN…Teacher, there are things I don't want to learn...I really need someone to help…help…help…he-help…brother Sam…help…Sam…help…Sam…"_

Will frowned. "Sam…where _is_ Sam? The Witwicky kid, is he here?" The captain scanned the area vainly.

"That's what we'd like to know."

Will rolled his eyes. _Just_ what this situation required. "Agent Simmons," he turned around. "Offence intended, but weren't you fired?"

"I was…reassigned to the NSA where I can keep an eye on…" he eyes shifted to the Autobot's in a reptilian way. "National threats."

"Quit. That's one threat right there," Will advised sagely. "What do you want?"

"We here to take in the NBE for containment," Simmons nodded. "These…mech men have violated the security agreement set down by the Sec Def, and hence are to be treated as hostile until such time as…we decide not. If you get in my way or withhold information I am fully licensed to kill."

Will thought about that. "Was that your first joke?"

"Step aside, _Captain_," the agent sneered. "Let the containment boys do their jobs, and do me a favour, don't act like GI Hero and the Super Squad. I've had to subdue enough macho idiots in my career."

"Break a lot of mirrors did you?" Will raised an eyebrow.  
"Are you," Simmons picked lint of his jacket like he wasn't facing down giant aliens. "going to comply?"

"I'm not going to have to start counting games with you again, am I?" Will replied calmly.

"What're you gonna do, soldier boy? You haven't even got a gun."

A sudden glow cast Will's shadow in from of him as he heard the hum of a plasma cannon warming up.

"Oh, don't make me laugh," Simmons chuckled as his boys lined up behind him. "You can't hurt humans."

"Wrong," Will replied cheerfully. "Dead wrong."

"We're not _supposed_ to hurt humans, human," Ironhide growled.

"Want to test the theory?" Will challenged. He stepped out smartly before Simmon's drones could react and grabbed the man by his shirtfront. "Where's Sam?"

"The kid's been tagged to be confined for reasons of national security."

"Why?"

"That's classified," Simmons replied smugly. "I warn you, if you're hiding him that is automatic detention for you, and maybe anyone you know…your wife and daughter, perhaps?"

Will's eyebrow twitched. "Ironhide." He shoved the man into the waiting giant hand and the agent was jerked twenty feet into the air.

"Step over the line and you'll be a thin residue on the air molecules, treaty be damned," Ironhide snarled. "Is this understood?"

"Whoa, whoa," Simmons sung from the end of the shaky grip, one slip away from oblivion. "Everyone just hold it!"

"Ironhide, stop playing with the half wit and call Prime," Ratchet called urgently from Bumblebee's side.

"What is it?"

"Some of the readings I'm getting," Ratchet looked up, bewildered. "Can't possibly be real."

---------------------------------------------------

The think tank was the size of warehouse, a tech wet dream of supercomputers, massive screens and multilevel terminals stretching up to the ceiling. It was the latest and best in scanning, searching and hacking. It was built and converted to find and track the newest additions to the human world, and put in the charge of the best minds in the world.

"Glen? _Glen_! Stop playing Warcraft on the defence network and get over here!" Maggie threw her plastic cup at the back of the genius' head.

"Come _on_, Mags, I nearly just defeated the Black Knight of…whoa, what kind freaky ass thing is _that_?" Glen pushed his glasses up his nose, scanning the wild energy readings being bounced across their satellite network.

"Weren't you watching? There was a massive stream of energy that just got blasted off into the sky. It actually zapped two satellites. The residuals are messing up radio waves and digital feeds all across the mid west. It's _everywhere_."

"It's not a Decepticon hack," Glen pulled up a diagnostic in a few keystrokes. "The signal here has no underlying code that integrates with present software."

"No, but look," Maggie pulled up the old signal that started their lives on such a weird turn. "It's close. It's got the same base elements. Whatever it was, it was alien. And …it's strength was incredible. I've never seen anything like it, not even with our data from the Autobots!"

"Uh…Mags?" Glen was running a track and trace through the satellite network, trying to map the blast's course. "I think we got a bigger problem. The S6759-DUS satellite picked up an answering scan _not_ a part of the original energy wave." Glen turned big eyes on the blonde analyst. "Something _up there_ picked up the blast."

"Something alien," Maggie breathed. "Good…or bad?"

"Put it this way…Houston? We have a _problem_."

Maggie picked up the phone.

------------------------------------------------

Miles threw his bag down on his bed, and waved his mother off and out. "I'm fine, okay? No one was hurt." _Except maybe Sam_.

He still couldn't believe what he'd seen. Sam, running from Trent and his cohorts. Sam…shooting _lightning_.

Miles had intended to run out to help his friend with Trent, but had ended up ducking around a wall as the windows were blown in. Then there was police, fire trucks, electricity trust people, councillors, parents – by the time the Let's Panic parade had gone past, Sam had thoroughly gotten away. Miles last saw him bent over his car, howling, as he, Miles, was being herded back out the emergency exits. No one had seen or heard from him since.

_He ran_. After what had happened, Miles couldn't blame him. Miles would have run too. The police had asked what happened, but what could he say? That he saw his best friend fry half the cars, all the lights, all the power poles and took out the front façade of the high school by shooting lightning? Even as he though it he knew they'd never buy it. He had to find Sam to find out just what the hell had happened.

Miles had tried calling the Witwicky house, but since the first words out of Mrs Witwicky's mouth were 'have you seen Sam?' he didn't think Sam had gone back there.

"He's your best bud," Miles said to himself. "Where would he go if he didn't go home and couldn't find you?" He thought for a moment.

He grabbed his bag again and the keys to his bike chain. "Mikaela."

---------------------------------------------------------------

In the dim twilight Sam had stared at his mother cooking through the kitchen window, and decided he couldn't…he _couldn't_. He retreated.

He had kicked at Mojo when the little dog had come out to greet him. "Keep away. Keep away!" Sam ran, eyes and cheeks burning and raw. His cell phone was nothing but broken pieces in his pocket, still warm. He was too scared to use the payphones, with the tiny sparks jumping from his hands at every instant. He found a scrap of paper, a pen, and managed to scribble a very short note before the pen melted. He hid it in Mojo's little house.

Now, he fumbled in the shed of tools next to the bus depot, hands shaking and heart hurting. Biting his lip, he reached out for what he was looking for. He just needed to do one more thing – one more thing before the Autobots came for him. They could take him, for all Sam cared. He just needed to do one more thing.

_Bumblebee. He survived destructions of worlds and centuries of war. And then he met _you_, Sam Witwicky._

Biting back the sob, Sam began slowly wrapping pieces of barb wire around him hands.

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	3. Chapter Two: Enemy Descends

Disclaimer: Transformers belong to Hasbro, Paramount, Michael Bay and so forth. This is just a free work of fiction. Also, I have made mention of some of the ideas established in Karategal's Little Bee stories (a highly recommended read), which I reproduce with permission.

Warnings: Violence, Intense Situations, Very Mild Bad Language

Authors Notes: Back again! Sorry about the delayed update; the week has been very, very, _very_ hectic.

I don't know if I'm entirely happy with this chapter – it didn't have quite the action I was looking for and was mostly explanation and so forth. However, there were certain points that had to be made, and I didn't want to make it too long. Things should move along a bit in the next chapter. Besides, I liked writing interactions between the Autobots.

Please read and review

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Chapter Two – Enemy Descends

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The bus made it almost halfway there before the engine nearly shot out of the frame.  
Literally. Its pipes and wires were bent and deformed, its battery blackened, it had left dents in the engine compartment. Dents on the _inside_.

It was as if, the driver chuckled uneasily, it was as if the engine had tried to _walk_ out of the bus. The mechanic they had called out had stared at it like a man planning to take up abstinence.

The stowaway had run off into the woods.

"Just some kid," the driver had told the depot. "It happens sometimes. They think they can get a free ride in the baggage compartment. He's lucky he didn't freeze to death, actually. His hands were blue. Didn't catch his name. He just took off through the smoke while we evacuated the bus."

Sam was on his own, in the darkness, alone. He had never felt this low before. Not when his first dog died, not when he failed getting on the football team, not even when he realised Mikaela _really_ didn't know who he was and likely never would. That had been pretty low.

But this was new. He had _killed_ someone. His best friend, his guardian; the quirky being with whom he shared an almost mystical bond. The wonder and awe of reaching out across the stars to connect with an entirely different but oddly familiar race was brutally and abruptly ripped to shreds, with no fanfare, no final goodbyes. In two minutes, Sam's life had turned into a nightmare he wasn't sure he was strong enough to live through.

The Autobots would _kill_ him. He didn't know what punishment they reserved for people who killed their people, but after watching them deal with the Decepticon's, he was pretty sure they didn't go in for slaps on the wrist.

Whatever. Sam was too grief stricken to care. Even if the Autobot's forgave him, Sam would never forgive himself. He'd somehow killed Bumblebee, his friend. He couldn't live with that. He couldn't rationalise it. He couldn't justify it. He couldn't say it _hadn't_ been his fault, because whatever this was, it came from him. All he could do was keep anyone else from getting hurt.

What was _happening_ to him? This was a new terror that was worse than the Decepticons, worse than his shiny new fear of heights. How was he supposed to defeat his own body as it turned on him?

Cursing, he suddenly flattened himself to the ground, spread eagled on his stomach, as the throbbing pulse inside him jumped again. It was his only warning. It came in cycles, he had learned. The power came up, out in a burst, and then settled again. As the sparks began to arc from the wire he'd wrapped around his hands, he shoved the barbs into the ground, trying to earth as much of the power as he could. Thank goodness he was now away from the city, which was too full of metal and cable, making him feel like a cigarette lighter in a fireworks factory.

The electric strikes were only small this time, but it was still enough to split a tree in half, smoke rising. The stink of smoke was on Sam's clothes and hair, and wouldn't come off. Like blood on the hands.

The throbbing in his chest was so much worse now – it burned like someone had lit a fire in there, and was jabbing hot irons in for good measure. He curled up around the pain, willing it to still long enough for him to continue. He had to tell her goodbye. He owed her that much. He had to keep going for that one last thing.

Sam breathed, and breathed, and breathed until the pain lessened and used his considerable grit to get up and keep going. It had taken him all day to get this far, but he wasn't giving up now. And when he was done, the Autobot's would decide.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The beacon of light in the sky had been noted, and drove the Autobot leader through the woods as fast as his alt mode could go. The explosion heard after that had him felling trees.

Optimus Prime was not the oldest Autobot in existence – that mantle was firmly on the cannons of his closest and loyalist friend, Ironhide. But he was no youngling, either. He'd been around the galaxy a few times, so to speak, and had seen much of the strange, repulsive, wonderful and weird. Not only that; as the leader, he'd had to actually _deal_ with most of it. So it followed that his threshold of surprise was pretty high. Insurmountable, almost. One does not remain as respected a leader as he without being able to deal with whatever mess the situation doled out with aplomb.

Optimus finally roared into the clearing, transformed without actually breaking momentum, stopped, and nearly dropped his jaw plate onto the ground.

Bumblebee was _skipping_ across the clearing, chirruping cheerfully from his damaged voice box, gleefully dodging Ironhide's grasping arms. Robo-cat and glitch mouse. Prime _remembered_ that game. Some of Optimus' oldest memories of Bumblebee rose to the surface watching him jump around – back to Little-Bee times, the tiny, tweaking, trouble-making terror being playfully and exasperatingly chased through whatever situation he'd cheerfully wandered into _this_ time by his league of caretakers, which was essentially every big bad macho warrior mech aboard the flagship. Optimus remembered those times with such a fondness in his spark; it does however have to be said that he was mostly glad they were over, too.

Optimus was blindsided by the whole thing. He watched his weaponry expert sidle slyly up to the little yellow 'Bot and make a heroic grab, but Bee darted away, high pitched whine ringing from him in lieu of a voice.

"Come on, little 'un, time to on 'charge," Ironhide grunted exasperatedly, and Optimus was even more shocked. He hadn't heard Ironhide use _that_ tone, stern but achingly gentle, since Bee's younger days.

What was going on here?

Captain Lennox, Optimus noted suddenly, was riding on Ironhide's shoulder, expertly moving with the old mech to maintain his balance. He was yelling down to the black clad humans Optimus tracked on the ground, who were scrambling and darting around the giant mech feet. Armed, Optimus noted with sudden grimness.

"Will you just goddamn well _hold it_? Get back, damn it, get back! Let them handle this!" The Captain yelled down Ironhide's back. He switched handholds absently as Ironhide shifted his weight, readying for another grab at Bumblebee.

"That NBE _fired_ on us!" Simmons screamed from the ground, incensed. In the distance, giving the clearing a dim glow, a battery truck with mounted guns was overturned and roasting in it's own juices. Ratchet was fanning the ground nearly with a circular cutter, throwing up a storm of dust and dirt to contain the flames.

"You were firing first, agent," Ratchet interjected, and Optimus heard worry, exasperation and sharp anger in the usually calm medic's voice. "Please refrain from doing so again."

Ironhide made another lunge for the bouncing Bee, who launched, flipped and rolled, and evaded him again, voice box clicking in what Optimus assumed was laughter. He nearly landed some of the humans, and that made Optimus' optics narrow. Bumblebee was _never_ careless with small living things, which wasn't something you could say about most mechs. He hadn't seemed to realise they were there.

"Right, that does it," Simmons waved at a second truck, which was manoeuvring around the stricken abandoned one. "Ready!"

"Stop!" Optimus stepped in, turning surprised heads, and it was a testament to how tense the situation was that no one, even his own soldiers, had noticed his approach.

Too late. The cable net had already been shot loose, parachuting behind it's small-caliber launchers. It didn't get very far. Moving with a speed that made him such an able medic, Ratchet lunged into its path, ducked under the leading edge and caught the snagging device by it's trailing edge in a fan of sparks, yanking back and killing it's forward momentum. Swift hands disabled the launchers with simple squeezes and the twisted metal mesh dropped to the ground in a folded, scraping tangle. Then Ratchet, taking entirely too much pleasure in it, gently dragged the net up and high, and lowered it over the scattered group of humans like a blanket. It wasn't heavy enough to crush them, but judging from the swearing and yells coming from under the mesh, it was enough to pin them and difficult to struggle out from under. "This is for your own good, you know," Ratchet admonished his unimpressed captives.

Then he was forced to duck, because Bumblebee opened fire.

Bumblebee felt like his head was on overload. Everything was too bright, his processors smoked taking in ten times the things they usually handled. Disorientated, he called desperately on his memory banks as he instinctively tried to figure out where he was and what had happened. So many different things registered. Ironhide was here. Was he late getting in again? He wasn't tired enough to go on recharge! He just had to stay out of the bigger mech's grasp, that was the key to the game. Then there were explosions. Tyger Pax! Battle! Decepticons! Panic washed his systems as he tried to find friend and foe, but his sensors were giving him conflicting information. His cannon loaded up…

Optimus lunged. Ironhide lunged. They just barely managed to get Bee's cannon pointing at the sky before it discharged a fourth time. The first blast had singed the truck and taken out of row of woodland behind it. The second one had shot a crater in the ground, and third made showers of burning leaves swirl around the clearing like fireflies.

"Get him on the ground!" Ratchet boomed, moving towards the tussling mechs.

"Simmons! Don't you _dare_!" Will yelled down to the agent from his grim handhold on Ironhide's back as they agent signalled a second strike.

"Ratchet, report!" Optimus ordered as he shifted his legs and knocked Bumblebee's supports out from under him, gently getting him to the ground with Ironhide's bracing help.

"Surge weapon," Ratchet replied, pulling out equipment. "We drained most of the power but it's still playing havoc with his systems. His sensors are overwhelmed and his memory banks are sparking randomly. When Ironhide spoke to him, he regressed to childhood. When the humans shot at him…" Ratchet shrugged. Bumblebee was a soldier.

Bumblebee gripped the edges of Optimus' chest plate and shook him agitatedly, giving off a series of whines and clicks and tortured groans which were the only sounds he could really make from himself. He was _trying_ to speak, but couldn't.

"Easy, little 'un," Ironhide whispered soothingly, tracing his immense finger joints over the smaller head of his one-time ward, just like old times.

"It's alright Bumblebee. It's safe. You're in the stronghold," Optimus spoke firmly and clearly, gently prising loose the yellow 'Bot's hand. "The Decepticon's are retreating. You are safe. You are _home_." He squeezed the digits to send the message. The voice of the Autobot leader was the tipping point; Bee stopped struggling against the two mech's restraining him. "Ratchet needs to take a look at you, little one," Optimus added as Bee relaxed.

Ratchet knelt down and the other mechs tentatively released their holds. Will took this opportunity to climb athletically down off Ironhide's crouched form and onto the dusty ground. "Optimus. Good to see you," the captain meant that sincerely. Optimus had a way of restoring order about him.

"And you, captain," Optimus gave the human soldier a nod of acknowledgement for help received.

Will sensed movement before him, and without ever really thinking about it, dove for an abandoned sidearm and came out straight armed at the dishevelled Agent Simmons, who had also drawn his gun _and _his cell phone. "_Don't_." Captain Lenox's tone was frost covered steel. The two guns crossed each other in a Mexican standoff.

"We have a national security situation here…yes I'll hold," Simmons grunted into the phone, streaked in grease. He glared at Will. "Once I finish reporting this I am arresting you for breech of national security. ET, Marvin and the rest of them _will_ be contained. By firing on a US official, they've…officially…declared war on the US."

"One of their own was attacked, jackass," Will felt like punching the man. "You would never have been fired upon if you hadn't shot first, and I'll be sure to tell the people that _matter_ exactly that. In the meantime you and your doped up posse can back the hell off before you make it any worse."

"The US Air Force does not have any authority here, Lennox. We have jurisdiction over the NBE's, we have jurisdiction over the kid, and there's _nothing_ you can do about it. You're just an outranked grunt. I am here under the NSA's orders and have the authority to take down any potential security breech, by any means necessary," Simmons wouldn't budge.

"I'm here under the Sec Def's command," Will produced his shiny new Autobot staff card. "And I have the authority of three giant robots." He saw Simmons face twist sourly as he read the Secretary of Defence Authority ID.

"We'll just see about…" Simmon's enraged reply was interrupted by a ring tone. It was loud, it echoed strangely in the sudden quiet. Even the Autobot's looked around. Simmons glanced at his own phone next to his ear, but it was still on hold.

With a nagging sense of recognition, Will started to pat his pockets with his free hand, keeping his gun hand steady. "I'm sure I turned that damn thing off." He kept patting, but the sound wasn't coming from him

The other Autobot's, save Bumblebee, were all looking at Ironhide, who was mirroring the captain on a massive scale. The older mech sighed and, performing a contorting half-transformation that made the others wince, extracted a shrilly ringing phone from somewhere near his left shoulder. Realigning his body, he irritably chucked the tiny buzzing device at the captain. "You did. You also left it in my glove compartment. My transforming reactivated it." He shot the human a pointed look.

"Sorry big guy," Will caught the phone at the end of it's precise arc, and punched the answer button. "I can't really talk now, honey."

"_That's okay, I have a headache, sugarmuffin_," was the wry answer.

"Epps?" Then Will remembered himself. "Rob?"

Tech Sergeant Robert Epps chuckled again. "_The one and only._" The voice suddenly sobered_ "We may have a mechanical problem, Cap._"

Mechanical, as in mech. "Yeah, got a few of them here myself," Will forced his eyes to keep from sliding to Simmons, who was eavesdropping suspiciously. Will kept the gun up.

"_We might have a vulture circling overhead. Satellites picked up something that doesn't look friendly_."

Damn, damn, _damn_. "Are they sure?"

"_Sure enough to get me out here to do recon. The GPS network picked up something entering the atmosphere but as far as we can tell, nothing has crashed…yet. The tech's and I are going out to see if we can track it. This could turn hostile. You want a transport or are you coming in your new truck?_"

"Neither. I have another situation here, could be connected. Stay with the techs, contact the rest of the team and keep me informed. I'll see what I can find out here," Lennox ordered crisply.

"_You got it, Cap'n._"

"Did the Sec Def call you?" Maybe they did have the authority here.

"_Nah. The tech did – Maggie._"

"How'd she know to call you?" Will asked, puzzled.

"_Uh… Blonde, nose stud, killer legs? I gave her my number._"

Will shook his head. He'd been married too long. "Keep thinking with your brain, Sergeant. Check in every thirty minutes."

"_Yessir_."

Will snapped off the phone, feeling a tense knot settle in his gut.

Simmons was watching him. "What was that about?"

"Call home, Simmons," Will advised brusquely. "Things have changed."

He spun around and stalked back to the Autobots, who seemed to be conferring.

"Ratchet, are you certain? That's impossible," Optimus' voice was grave.

"I ran a dozen scans, Optimus. They're all telling me it's almost the same as Cube energy," Ratchet's hands worked methodically on the prone Bumblebee, who's optics were dim.

"The Cube?" Will hissed, knowing there were prying ears nearby. "The Cube's _gone_, isn't it?"

"Yes," Ratchet said quietly, looking down at Bumblebee. "And yet…"

"That might be it," Will mused.

"Be what?" Ironhide asked, surprised.

"There's a Decepticon lurking around," Will reported grimly. "We're trying to pin down his location. Could they do…what you do?" He waved a hand at Ratchet. "Track energies?"

"They can pick up Cube energy. And once they did would stop at nothing to seek it out," Optimus replied, his voice flat. "We must find the source immediately."

"Faster than immediately – I think it's in the area. We have to find Sam," Will said grimly.

"Sam?" Optimus looked surprised. "He is not here?"

"No. And the NSA is real interested in his whereabouts. They've 'tagged him for confinement' – that's a fancy way of saying they're planning to lock him up and throw away the key. Either he's seen something or he knows something – do we know where the energy attack happened? Can we find out where it came from?"

"It shouldn't be hard to trace the energy trail, the residuals are still in the air," Ratchet sniffed experimentally.

"Ironhide and I will track this energy and try to find Sam," Optimus nodded. "Ratchet, stay here with Bumblebee. Follow us when you can."

"He should be up and around soon," Ratchet confirmed.

"Captain," Optimus extended a hand. "Will you join us?"

Will grinned. It was a humbling thought that such battle hardened being put such faith in so frail a creature as himself. "Let's go track some Cube."

-----------------------------------------------------

"Have you got the laptop?"

"Yep."

"Spare batteries?"

"Got 'em."

"Cheetos?"

"We'll stop on the way, Glen," Maggie rolled her eyes. "Are you sure we can find this…bogey?"

"Look, the Decepticon's frequency plays merry hell with anything electrical in the area. More than that, it's a very rare high frequency white noise that's produced. The antenna's will be tuned to that frequency, and wherever the frequency appears on _any_ network, we'll know it." Glen shrugged. "Probably."

Epps slammed the trunk closed. "So basically we're tracking static."

"Yes. Alien static," Glen hauled himself into the back seat of the SUV, already crammed with gear.

"Is this it? Isn't anyone else going out?" Maggie looked apprehensively at the one vehicle that was supposed to find a hostile entity that could be anywhere within a thousand square miles.

"The Sec Def's readying forces for deployment in case this turns ugly, and we don't have men to spare with the security clearance for this," Epps snorted. "The rest of the team's all we got, really."

Glen stuck his head out of the window. "The rest of the tank techs are going to give us IT support. Once we have a trail, it won't be hard to get a position. One of the satellites picked up the entry, so we have a starting point."

Maggie bit her lip. "Here's hoping we don't meet them in person," she muttered.

"Ready?" Epps called from the drivers side. "Let's go track some Decepticon."

-----------------------------------------------

Miles walked alongside his bike slowly, frustrated. Mikaela was out of town, damn! Finding Sam would have been easier if she'd been here. Her aunt had been very helpful, and had given Miles a phone number after hearing that 'that nice lad Sam' was missing. Miles fumbled for his phone.

"_Hello_?" a voice mumbled after three rings.

"Uh…hi," Miles found himself flustered faced with talking to an unknown girl on the phone. "Is this, uh, Mikaela?"

"_Yeah. Who is this_?" she replied.

"Look," Miles rubbed the back of his head nervously. "You don't know me or anything, but my name's Miles and I'm Sam's friend…" there was a silence of the other end, and Miles rushed to fill it. "Uh…you might have noticed me that day at the lake? I was the one in the tree."

"_Oh…oh, yeah, I remember. How did you get this number_?"  
"Your aunt. Look, has Sam called you or anything? Something happened at school today and now he's missing."

"_Missing_?_ Since when_?" There was a pause, and then a sharp "_Was he picked up by a car or something? Like a police car_?"

"What? No! Look, there was this giant accident, okay, and now Sam has up and disappeared and…I think it has something to do with why he's been missing for the last few weeks. Okay? So has he called you, have you seen him?"

"_I …no. He hasn't called me or anything_," Mikaela's tone was guarded. She hazarded. "_Maybe you should just leave this to the cops_."

Miles was incredulous. "Are you nuts? He's my friend, and I don't think the cops can help him. I _know_ something happened to him in the last couple of weeks. What kind of trouble is he in?' Miles demanded.

"_He's…he's not in any trouble. Just stay out of it, okay? Sam's fine, I'm sure he is_," Mikaela tried to keep her tone light. She was hiding something.

Miles gritted his teeth, frustrated. "Does fine include _shooting lightning_? Because I _saw_ Sam do that, and it wasn't okay, okay? He's in real trouble. I need to find him."

"_Shooting…this had better not be some stupid joke!_"

"Turn on the news! It's all over the headlines! Half the school was wiped out! Tell me what's going on here!"

Mikaela sounded concerned and sceptical. "_I'll find Sam – you don't have to worry about that. I…I can't tell you anything. Just keep out of this. We'll find him._"

"We…who?" Miles was answered by dial tone. Frustrated, he slammed the phone shut.

He wasn't dropping this.

He picked up his bike, and pedalled furiously towards Sam's house.

---------------------------------------------------

There was a shrill scream from the equipment in the SUV.

"We got something" Glen yelled, tapping away. "It's an actual alien signal. What the hell? It just appeared all of a sudden. There was no trail!" He punched the coordinates into the GPS anyway.

"No trail?" Maggie tapped from the front seat. "How can that happen?"

"If it's that flying bastard," Epps broke in, stepping on the gas pedal. "If he's flying high enough, he might be able to avoid leaving frequencies or appearing on radar anywhere. A lot of our jets do that."

"Damn, I didn't think of that," Glen cursed. "He can drop out of the sky anywhere he likes!"

"Oh no," Maggie breathed at her screen. "An attack confirm just got sent by the defence network."

"Attack?"

---------------------------------------------------

"_Optimus_," Ironhide sent to his leader, speeding up.

"_I know. I felt it too, old friend."_ Optimus had taken the rear on the road, and kept pace easily.

"Felt?" Will prompted from the drivers seat.

"_Starscream has revealed himself_." Optimus replied, voice grim.

"_An attack? On American soil?_" Simmons tinny outrage came through Ironhide's speakers from Optimus's cab.

"Shut up! Just be glad they decided to bring you along," Will snapped back at him, rolling his eyes. "How close?" He asked Ironhide.

"_Too slagging far away for us!_" Ironhide howled in fury.

-------------------------------------------------

Starscream could almost taste the raw energy still in the air after the maelstrom. He descended through the clouds, dropping like a stone until he could expertly hover over the high school parking lot, casting his ominous shadow.

There men working on the cables even so late at night, and they were knocked off their cherry pickers and cranes by the downdraft. Those that could ran for cover as the hideous whining engine descended to within inches of their heads, lights flashing, lasers probing.

_All Spark. All Spark._

Then the terrible jet thrust upwards again, so fast it was almost like it's momentary intrusion never happened. For a moment the fleeing workers, already blocks away, relaxed. Any moment now someone was going to make a crack about the idiot proof air force.

The missiles streamed down before anyone could even register the threat. In one minute, silence was filled with deafening slabs of destruction sound that took out windows a half mile around; flames billowed out like an orange and red rose, bleeding smoke and shrapnel – the lot, the school, and several other buildings nearby were nothing more than smoking, glowing holes in the ground.

Mission accomplished, Starscream vanished into the clouds again, scanning for the energy again, prepared to follow the tracks wherever they went.

All hail Megatron

Sam, oblivious to any of this, stumbled onwards, getting closer to his goal.

And to his end.

----------------------------------------------------


	4. Chapter Three: High Speed Collision

Disclaimer: Trabsformers belongs to Hasbro, Paramount, an many other people much richer than the author.

Warnings: Some violence, intense themes, mild bad language

Authors Notes: It's been a while, hasn't it? Writing lately is like pulling hen's teeth, I just couldn't make it sound good, no matter what I did. It took me a long time to work everything out. I'll get a little more prompt in updating now, that's going to be one of my goals. Sorry for the wait, people. This happens a lot with me, I know. I guess it's just hard for me to keep consistent. Thanks to anyone who stuck around. Hope you like it, I knew I shouldn't wait long to post it.

Please, read and review.

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Chapter Three: High Speed Collision

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Lennox felt his head hit the headrest as Ironhide suddenly accelerated, and swerved around, taking an entirely new road at high speeds. The few night time cars on the roads flashed by in blurs of glinting lights, there and gone in mere instants.

"What's up, big guy?" Lennox looked at the speedometer, but gave it up as a useless exercise. Ironhide could go a _lot_ faster. "Aren't we heading for the attack site?"

Over the speakers, he heard Simmons let out a squeaky howl as Optimus copied Ironhide's action, and then a stream a virulent curses.

"_Starscream has reappeared twenty miles from this location. Whatever he did before, we can be of little help there now,_" Optimus drowned out the agents voice over the speakers.

"_Look here you psychotic alien tin can of scum,_" Simmons squawked. "_I am here on federal authority and I am ordering you to cease and wait for instruction from our people. You are not allowed to just tear around our planet without governmental authority!_"

Ironhide revved. "Optimus, _please_, I'm begging you - just launch him out of your cab."

Optimus waited a moment before responding. "_Let's just focus on tracking Starscream._" At another round of vitriol from Simmons, he added"_For now_."

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Maggie stared at the school. There was just nothing left. Nothing.

Epps was tight lipped. "We may need some help here."

"Some _help_?" Glen squawked. "We need an armada!"

"Is that non-friendly still here?" Epps demanded, shooting a quick recon gaze at the sky.

"Oh, that's very nice, I like that," Glen's fingers rattled out on the keyboard like a machine gun. "Non friendly. Like they keep a Doberman and park their cars in front of others driveways. Non friendly," he repeated sarcastically. He pounded a random machine packed somewhere in the back. "According to this? No. He's up in a sky and past our sensor range, at least down here. The techs at the tank are working on satellite tracking, but it'll take time to synchronise."

"A simple 'no' would have been fine," Epps sighed. "It's here and it's hostile. We'll need back up before we go any further."

"I know someone who might be able to help," Maggie broke in, still staring at the school.

---------------------------------------------------

_All hail Megatron_.

Barricade woke from his stasis.

It had been a long couple of weeks of the Decepticon scout. More suited to espionage that front line combat, he had escaped the carnage of Mission City with semi-minor damage and did then what he did best – blend in. He sat in a disused corner of a junkyard, and went dormant, hoping to escape being tracked by the Autobots, who were no doubt keeping their antennas open for any sign of…well, him, and others like him.

Starscream, apparently, was alive. Barricade revved his internals irritably. You couldn't win them all.

All hail Megatron, though? Why transmit that across an open frequency? Barricade opened his communications log and scanned. Orders from Megatron's personal matrix? A single code, ordering all agents to fall back and conceal.

Barricade was suspicious. It looked like they were being filtered through Starscream's systems, which wasn't unusual per se, but it caught Barricade's attention. If orders were coming from Megatron, that meant Megatron was alive, didn't it?

Starscream certainly seemed to think so. His tab was showing a mission status. Barricade tried to track his location, but his tracker signal was firewalled. Interesting. If Megatron _was_ alive – Barricade could neither confirm nor deny it, no one had direct access to the evil mech's systems – then maybe Starscream was simply currying favour to anyone in earshot.

Barricade accessed every frequency in his range, looking for some sign of his leader. Human news and codes filtered in like a soft rain. Barricade read reports about the obliteration of the school, and saw Starscream's subtle touch on it. He wondered what the idiotic scrap heap was up to now.

The Autobots might have better information. They often did. And Barricade knew where at least one of them should be. Weighing the risk, Barricade made his way to the Witwicky household.

There were already police cars there, which helped Barricade saunter in close, unnoticed. The humans were chattering and moving about, but their actions were of no interest to Barricade. Scanning only extremely lightly, Barricade knew the young yellow minibot, Bumblebee, was nowhere in the vicinity. Slag.

There was a faint energy trace in the air, something tingly and almost familiar, that gave Barricade pause. He settled in to wait and watch, careful not to announce himself, dampening his signals. The yellow baby-bot would be back sooner or later, he was practically welded to the puny human boy. Barricade was too cautious to act without proper information, and the Autobots would definitely know if there was any hint of Megatron in the air. That tingly signal was bothering him too. It almost felt like…

A boy on a two wheeled contraption rolled up to the house. He never even noticed Barricade.

--------------------------------------------------------

Mikaela walked around the lake arms crossed in a tense shield across her chest. She was in turmoil. She knew what she had to do.

The call from Sam's friend Miles had sent her into a tailspin. Panic welled in her chest, worse than Mission City, worse than dropping through the air under that damn bridge, worse than anything she had ever imagined.

Sam was in trouble, she knew it, she felt it. Mikaela needed to help him, she needed to contact the 'Bots, she had to find him. Right now, though, she had to find a way to _explain_ this to her Dad. He wouldn't just let her run off in the middle of the night without some sort of explanation. A damn good explanation, because this whole week was about them, together, reconnecting.

There had never been any lies between Mikaela and her Dad. He may have been a thief, but he had been honest about that. He had never pretended it was the right thing to do. Mikaela couldn't pretend that nothing was happening to her, not in the face of that.

Sam's friend's message had been confusing. Shooting lightning? That just didn't sound right. Unless it was a Decepticon and that was what scared Mikaela most. It could have been. Miles couldn't understand everything he was seeing. Oh god, what if he was…

"Mikaela?"

Mikaela spun around, shocked. Standing near the lake shore was Sam, shiny with sweat and panting like he'd run a race. His hands were curled in the shadows near his stomach, his posture was hunched and hurting.

"Sam!" Mikaela raced towards him, relief making her physically shake. "Sam, thank God, Miles; Miles called and he said the school had blown up and I was so worried it was a Decepticon attack and..." Mikaela jerked to a stop mid-babble and mid step and Sam shot out defensive hands in front him, backing away like a nervy colt.

"No! No, you can't," he choked out. "Please, you can't come near me."

Mikaela's mouth opened in horror. "Oh my God, Sam! Your hands! God, the wire…why…?" She took a step forward, but stopped at Sam jerked back.

"Something…something happened to me. I started…my hands…they…I threw electricity all over the place and I…Bumblebee…I killed him and I blew up the school…I killed, him, oh God, Mikaela, I'm so sorry and I killed him…" Sam's whole body shook with half formed sobs.

Mikaela stared. "Hang on, just…just calm down, okay? You shot lighting? I don't understand. Just…just tell me what's happening. How could you have killed Bee? He's a giant robot, Sam, our worst rocket launchers couldn't hurt him!"

Sam haltingly explained as best he could. "…the wires to ground the shocks. I had to do something, I nearly zapped some people."

Mikaela was nearly in tears. Sam wouldn't let her any closer, and she just wanted to touch him and reassure herself that he was okay. She had to convince him that it was all going to be okay. "Sam," she wept. "Please, we'll just…we can fix this. Okay? We can fix this. We'll call the Autobots, we'll call the army guys. We can _fix_ this, Sam."

"Bee's dead! I killed him! It's not like a car, or something. He was…alive, and now he's…" he waved a wire wrapped hand in despair. "I just…I wanted to say goodbye. That's all. I love you and I wanted to say goodbye."

Mikaela stared at him, bereft of words. "Sam…"

"Just…call the 'Bots. Call them and…." He paused, frowning.

"What is it?" Mikaela stepped forward, and was encouraged when Sam was too distracted to back away. "Sam?"

"It's….It feels weird…" he frowned and looked around. "Is there anyone here besides us?"

"Mikaela? You alright honey?"

Mikaela turned to face her Dad coming down the lake path, nearly wincing. Oh, this was not going to go over well. "Dad….uh…this is Sam…" and what now, Mickey? She thought to herself.

Especially since Sam was looking at the sky, and didn't even seem to realise that a third person had arrived. His hands were slowly curling around the wire in a way that made Mikaela wince. "Mikaela…get inside."

"What?"

"Get inside. _Right_ now. Move!"

"Who the hell are you, son?" her Dad was coming closer. He was a big man, her Dad, dark haired and blue eyed, just like her.

"I'm Sam. I'm dating your daughter. Now you _really need to get inside_," Sam persisted, his voice tight with tension.

Skittering across the wires, fat blue sparks jumped and danced, arcing across his shaking, bleeding hands.

"_Sam!_" Mikaela shrieked in horror, darting forward. She was stopped by a shovel-like hand as her Dad, wisely, yanked her back.

"Run!" Sam bellowed, and the sky was full of noise. Lights scythed through the light cloud cover, and a dark, jagged shape dropped through them, the clouds sent scattering under the burning force of it's jets. Even the sound was an attack, a hideous wailing shriek right at the point of pain.

Mikaela's throat went dry in instant panic. _Starscream_. As the burning lights came down, Mikaela flinched, fully expecting it to be some sort of attack. They passed over her and her Dad dragged her against him protectively. They passed over….Sam wasn't there any more. He took of down the lake edge, waters in the usually calm body now kicking and rippling in the downdraft. The light circled and followed, and Starscream re-angled himself, shooting away in a sonic boom, following the teenager's desperate sprint.

Mikaela struggled free of her father's grip, and took off after Sam, but she was dressed in light sandals and was nowhere near the runner he was. Overhead, she heard the rattling wash of echoes that was the multi-tonne transformation of the alien evil.

It landed, half in the lake, and Mikaela thought in irrational panic that Starscream had paid extra for waterproofing. It wasn't a central thought, just a few brain cells on the periphery, screaming in disbelief.

"Sam!" she screamed at the still sprinting team, willing her burning legs to push harder and faster. Helplessness washed over Mikaela. Against something like that, what could you do? What the _hell_ could you do? Even a gun was useless. Sam was a distant shape, zigging and zagging towards the forest as Starscream rose out of the water, launching toward the teen like a hungry predator.

Headlights lit up behind Mikaela, and she darted sideways, suddenly frightened that Starscream had not come alone. A truck rolled up beside her.

"Mickey, get in!" he father bellowed from inside. Passenger door swung open as the truck pulled level, and Mikaela didn't wait for it to slow. She jumped in as it rolled past, slamming the door shut.

"Go! After them!" she yelled desperately.

"Mickey," he Dad was aghast. "What _is_ that thing?"

"I don't have time. We really don't have time," Mikaela grabbed one of him arms. "You trust me, don't you? _Please_, Dad!"

Her Dad stepped on the accelerator. "I don't know about the _thing_, but we might be able to grab the kid."

The truck was old and ponderous, but it roared toward the edge of the forest, and Sam. Starscream tried to grab him like an escaping rat, but Sam managed to swerve out of his snatching appendages. _Why isn't he trying to fire_? Mikala thought as the truck bounced on the uneven ground. It would be the easiest thing in the world for Starscream to obliterate the frail human.

Sam had hit the edge of the trees, but they didn't provide any cover. Starscream's massive hands ripped out the old trees like they were carrots, Mikaela yelped and her Dad cursed colourfully as a massive trunk whirled past they car, leaves and branches flying off like shrapnel. The truck squealed around another one that flew straight by like a missile. As the truck was yanked back on course, Mikaeala screamed as she saw Starscream pluck something out of the gloom between the trees. Her heart shuddered – he'd grabbed Sam up like a miniature action figure. A thousand outcomes flashed in front of her mind – Sam being crushed like a grape, slammed into the ground like a toy, flung through the air like a paper plane, all the things that evil metal could do to the frail flesh and bone. Mikaela let out a painful noise that didn't belong in a human mouth, a keening, anaemic, breathless scream.

But before she even had time to think, Starscream tossed the thick, old tree that he held in his free hand away as he held up his prize, and it spun towards the truck, faster than a blink, faster than it took to react.

It swatted the truck like a buzzing fly, and knocked it clear into the lake.

---------------------------------------------------------

The SUV slowed outside the Witwicky house.

"Maggie! Mags!"

"Glen, we are not stopping for doughnuts."

"Mags. I'm getting a signal! Close!"

"How close?"

"Look out your window. But don't look at him, or he'll know you're there."

"What?"

---------------------------------------------------------

Miles kept pushing at his pedals, pushing the bike as far and as fast as it would go. Frantically he wished for a better means of transport, a motor bike, a car, _something_ better than this old clunker of a bike.

He wasn't just worried now, he was scared. He'd gone to Sam's house, but the elder Witwicky's weren't there. They cars were gone, and Miles would lay bets that they were scouring the streets, looking for their son. Miles had known the Witwicky's since preschool and as painfully (for Sam) quirky as they were, they never just sat a waiting for things to happen. Sam got a lot of his energy from them.

It was Mojo who had drawn his attention Sam's note, left in the doghouse. There were blue drops of melted plastic splattered across it, but that wasn't the worst thing. The worst thing was the words.

_I love you all. Goodbye._

That wasn't what was on the note – there was a lot of rambling stuff about Sam killing someone called Bumblebee and that he was dangerous and a lot of other stuff Miles couldn't understand – but that was the whole message at the core of it, written into the heartfelt words in the shaken, half smudged letters. Miles had it in his pocket now, along with the warped pen used to write it, which looked like someone had stuck it in a furnace.

Something was very, _very_ wrong here. Sam could shoot lightning, he thought he had killed someone, and he _thought he was going to die_.

Well, that wasn't going to happen, was it? Because Sam was his friend and that just wasn't going to happen while Miles was around. And Miles was going to find Mikaela, because she was the only one who knew where Sam had been for the past few weeks and damn if she wasn't hiding something. The cabin was on the second lake outside town somewhere close to the national park. He'd been up there before, hiking with Sam. He could find it. Sam had even told him that it was next to one of their favourite trails. He wished his mother was home, but she had late shift tonight, so there went his only option for a ride.

He pushed his bike harder, passing a broken down bus in a blur.

He hadn't seen the police car follow him from the house. After reading the note, his world had narrowed in focus – find Mikaela, find Sam.

He wasn't concerned when headlights lit up behind him. He merely made sure he was far off to the side of the highway, and was prepared to let the car pass.

The car wasn't. The car swerved up onto the shoulder and screeched for him, and even before Miles had time to react before the police car proclaiming 'to punish and enslave' knocked the back wheel of his bike. Jolted, Miles balance failed, the bike's dented wheel dragging the bike sideways. Miles fell backwards, and ended up hitting the bonnet of the police cruiser, hard.

The car had scooped him up, crushing his bike under it's wheels as it sped up, and Miles didn't even have time to panic as he flipped in midair, and saw the windscreen coming at him like a shiny wall. A moment of pure mortal shock came and went, because the windscreen flipped down, and Miles went through the hole, whacking his shins but otherwise unharmed.

He landed in the back seat. The front seats had folded neatly into the floor, and snapped back up again, along with the windscreen. He was trapped.

------------------------------------------------

"This was a bad idea. This was a bad idea," Maggie mumbled as Epps stepped on the accelerator. "This was a very bad idea!"

"Holy Kidnap, Batman," Glen hissed. "Did you _see_ that? It just snapped him up like a venus fly trap."

"I saw," Epps said grimly, stepping hard on the accelerator. The kid had never noticed the Decepticon, but with any luck, the alien hadn't noticed them yet either. He kept the sinister red tail lights in his sights.

"We need help," Maggie felt her heart jump and twitch. "We need help, Rob. We can't do anything against him. We need Bumblebee. We should have waited and found him first."

"Maggie," Epps said slowly. "I know this is a little freaky ass bad, but I need you to just take a breath, okay? Yeah, maybe we should have, and maybe we should have back up and maybe we aren't prepared. But we can't do anything about that right now. This is how things are. That alien just snatched a kid. I don't know why, and I don't care but it means we've got two options; we follow, or we let the thing take him. And as far as I'm concerned, the latter is not an option. Right?"

Maggie bit her lip. "Right."

"Yeah, right," Glen cut in from the back. "But not to poke holes in the plan, what can we _do_ about this?"

"I'll let you know when I think of it. In the meantime – aren't you the signallers? Get us some help. Any help!"

----------------------------------------------------------

"Bumblebee, stay down or I will deactivate you!" Ratchet pinned his comrade to the ground, ignoring the indignant clicks and whines. "I have to fix your chest plate before you go anywhere, or your spark is going to be open to the wind and it'll turn into the world largest bug zapper. I am _not_ planning to zoom around picking up all the pieces you leave behind you on the road until you cough up your own engine. Stay!"

He shoved Bee down again, and threatened him with a spinning cutter until he settled.

Ratchet sighed and got back to work. Bumblebee only looked lucid and awake. His systems were still sparking and jolting all over the place.

They were mostly alone in the clearing now. The feds that Simmons had bought with him had no experience with the Autobots, and had immediately given the two mech's a wide perimeter. There was something about the way Ratchet wielded his varied and painful looking tools that just didn't make them eager to interrupt his work.

What a mess. But, thankfully, Ratchet could patch him up here. He was a long way from the full med bay back on the ship. "How do you get yourself into these things, little one?"

Bumblebee let loose a frustrated whistle, and brought one hand up and formed an interface spike. He clicked and whined insistently.

"Hardware before soft…" Ratchet tried to grip the appendage. Bumblebee swiped him across one auditory receptor in frustration. "Little one, if you don't _calm down_ and _lie still_ I will…" another thump. "_Fine_, I'll interface, but if you're still giving me trouble after that, you won't like to downgrade I'll give you for it, understand?"

Ratchet fiddled with some wires, and locked his own systems to the younger 'Bots. Bereft to the sound bytes he usually used, this was the best way for Bumblebee to communicate.

Ratchet winced as the influx of information from Bumblebee's systems flooded his. His sensors were still half overloaded so Ratchet was aware to the cloud cover thickening overhead in the low pressure system, the fact that they were ringed by one hundred and fourteen separate trees, the life sign readings from twenty eight agents who had formed a perimeter around them, about four dozen different radio broadcasts, sights, sounds, sensations, weird, disjointed scraps of memory, streams and streams of code….Ratchet used his own systems to stem the flood, remotely shutting down the unnecessary protocols sparked to life by the mass power injection. What a mess, what a mess….

_Sam was shooting lightning from his hands_.

Mental repair work screeching to a halt, Ratchet turned around to access that memory more closely. It could just be layering – more than one memory replaying at the same time, which is as close to hallucinating as Autobots got. But as he looked closer…

This was real? Sam had actually hit Bumblebee with a surger? Humans, Ratchet knew, didn't have the level of technology. But as he examined the few scant seconds before the strike shorted out Bumblebee's short term memory, it almost looked like the surge was coming _from_ Sam.

Which was _insane_. Ratchet had absorbed enough about human physiology to know humans could not take that amount of raw energy running through their bodies. Sam would have dead long before he could produce enough power to incapacitate Bumblebee, whose body was designed to be run on and absorb large amounts of it.

Cube energy….

The mere thought sparked Bumblebee's still interfaced systems, and pulled a memory out.

Ratchet saw…._a picture of Sam legs dangling over the edge of the gully near the old tree. He realised, as with all the memories, he was seeing from Bumblebee's perspective. He was on mech mode, and looking down on Sam as he too dangled his enormous legs over pit. _

"_I was really freaking out, Bee," Sam had said sheepishly. "I know you think I'm brave, but I was lubricating myself, trust me. The worst part was when I fell and the Allspark sparked in my hands, and suddenly there's this killer vending machine on the street and I realised 'oh God, I'm holding a bomb!' I felt it zap me. I thought it would end right there…"_

Ratchet yanked himself out of the memory, and out of the interface in shock. The Cube had discharged in Sam's unprotected hands? Sam should be dead. It should have zapped him like a bug. Humans didn't have a body designed for that kind of surge. The humans who had kept the Cube at the damn had only approached it with protective gear.

Primus, this was amazing.

"That's it? That's what you wanted to show me?" Ratchet demanded of the clicking Bumblebee. "You already deduced this, didn't you?"

Bumblebee was feeling a bit more cognitive after Ratchet's interface. He accessed a radio wave. "_It's alive. It's alive! The Creature is alive!"_  
"Alive….do you mean the Allspark?" Ratchet sat back on his haunches over the prone 'Bot.

Ratchet's diagnostic screen lit up as Bumblebee sent messages through it. _///---When I touched it, it answered me---///_

"Answered you?"

///---_Yes_. _Hard to describe. Did not react like machine. It answered. It connected. Like we do. Living things---///_

Ratchet considered that. Well, he thought, why not? The Allspark was far older than anything they had encountered, and no one knew very much about it, did they? Even the Autobots had only a vague idea of how it worked, and no idea how it came to be.

It makes life. Only other living things can make life, so it follows that the Allspark could be alive. Not like the 'Bots were alive, not like humans were alive, but alive in it's own way. A lot of Cybertronian scholars had studied the mysterious thing before the Great War, and many of them had theorised it was possible, but improvable. After the war had started, no one took the time to really examine it again.

Ratchet followed the thought logically. It's impossible to prove it was alive. Assume that it was. The Cube was in danger, what do living things do when in danger? They find a way to save themselves. Was that it? Had the Allspark found a way to continue?

Through a _human_?

The buzz of the direct signal made him jump upright, shocked out of his thoughts. Ratchet answered while still patching up Bumblebee, hands a blur. One thing Ratchet was sure of – if this had actually happened, then _none_ of them had much time.

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Starscream had never been the brightest mech ever conceived. Not the fastest, not the strongest, not the greatest fighter ever built and certainly not a mastermind, a strategist or a specialist to make up for any other shortcomings. However, he did have a talent which was almost marketable, that couldn't be taught, learned or stolen. Starscream was a survivor. He always managed, somehow, to worm, snitch, beg and ingratiate himself slightly beneath the top, out of the line of fire or into the position of safety. It was an art close to genius.

He'd had time to organise his thoughts after escaping from the disaster in Mission City. So far he had come to realise thusly;

One, that Megatron, both his shield and the doom hanging over his head, was out of the picture.

Two, that Megatron was probably egoistic enough to transmit the battle to any and all Decepticons in the galaxy that could pick it up so they could witness his greatest triumph – and therefore they probably knew something had gone terribly wrong instead, which lead to…

Three, that Starscream was going to be about as popular as insta-rust when and if his fellow Decepticons tracked him down.

Starscream wasn't that much of a fool. His survival strategy had earned him enemies on both sides of the line. Megatron had protected him because everyone needs someone like Starscream; one who always knew where the exit doors were. He hadn't been a safe element, but as long as Starscream was useful, Megatron didn't let the others do anything more than superficial damage. Without Megatron he, Starscream, was a mech alone and surrounded by beings who would happily melt him down if given even a tenth of a chance, especially after Mission City and Starscream's vanishing act.

That was the annoying thing about the whole affair. Megatron, no more dishonest, evil, and treacherous than Starscream himself, had inspired a perverse loyalty in his troops. They'd feared him, of course, and had known that he wouldn't hesitate for an instant to throw them into oblivion to get what he wanted. However….he and Prime had been brothers. The same charisma and leadership that made Optimus Prime such a respected and worshipped commander was within Megatron too – except more or less in reverse. They may hate him, but they would follow him. Not even a toaster would follow Starscream. The mech had a long time to think about this while he licked his wounds, and suddenly, by Primus, opportunity landed.

Sam awoke. He couldn't move. His head pounded and his chest felt like a dull spike had been pushed through it.

He was riveted to a flat metal panel on the ground, completely immobilized. He turned his head, and saw….wasn't this the make out point? Had he bought Mikaeala here? Where was she? Blearily, he tried to remember what had happened.

Wait, he remembered Mikaela had been crying. Oh God, he'd made her cry. And then…

Starscream bent into his live of sight, and Sam let out a yell at the evil eyes suddenly boring into him.

"Puny human," he growled. "You are going to help me resurrect Megatron."

_What_? "What?" Sam croaked, his dry, raw throat barely able to produce the sound.

Starscream gave a barking laugh. "You, boy. You are going to help me resurrect Megatron. By the end of the day, _I_ will be commanding the Decepticons. I don't see any point in being subtle. I'm going to blast your planet into rubble, so hard that nothing will ever grow on it again," one giant finger prodded Sam, making his breath blast out in a whoosh. "But not _you_. I'm going to need you. And your dead friend."

Dear frie…Sam turned his head, and drew in enough breath to scream. "_You bastard! What have you done? You goddamn bastard_!" while Starscream laughed.

It…He lay there, covered in dust and mud. They wouldn't let him share the fate of the other wrecks, not a friend, not a comrade. They'd buried him, following an Earth tradition instead.

And Starscream had dug him up. He'd _dug him up_. He'd dug Jazz out of the ground.

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	5. Chapter Four: The Planning Stage

Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro, Paramount….um, Michael Bay and probably a few hundred various designers. Not the author. Non-profit work here only.

Warnings: Mild coarse language, adult themes, some mention of blood, supernatural

Authors Notes: Whoo, here, finally. Well, at least it was quicker than the last one (not by much, I know, I know) – I got box sets for Christmas, and I can never just watch one at a time. Not much actual action in this chapter, but plenty of plot.

Please read & review. And all the reviews so far have been…wow! Thanks.

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Chapter Four: The Planning Stage

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See the truck – barely a truck, sinking inch by inch into a moonlit lake. There was no tray visible now, only one wheel on the driver's side, canted up out of the water. It doesn't bubble or rock. It simply vanishes into dark spaces and silvery reflections, leaving nothing but smooth ripples. Soon, there will be nothing there at all.

"Have I ever told you how I met your mother?"

Mikaela thought about it. "One thousand, six hundred and fourteen times."

"I was flipped right dead smack onto her car bonnet…"

"One thousand, six hundred and fifteen," Mikaela sighed.

"And seeing her screaming at me for wrecking her car with blood running from her nose and half my ribs broken was a major turn on. I wonder if that makes me a masochist?"

"Dad," Mikaela said slowly. She pushed a needly pine branch away, only to have it swat her in the face. "You know I love listening to you but _too much information_!"

Her father gave a rough chuckle. "Kidding. No really! She was screaming and I was screaming and the car was brand spanking new – as in it had one mile on it. I ended up agreeing to fix it for free. I never did figure out how that happened. She could always do that to me. I'd come in with a perfectly reasonable argument and end up doing anything she wanted. I can't even remember how it happened half the time…"

Finally! Mikaela's scratched hand had inched blindly toward the door release, her vision was filled with green spikes and the smell of evergreen from the denuded tree, which boxed her vision front and both sides. Now it was just a matter of curling each fingertip around it, as far as she could stretch her pinned arm.

"And then there was her Dad," her father continued. Mikaela couldn't even see him in the watery dark of the cab, an entire branch was stuck between them in a needle crossed screen, and it worried her. A lot. He continued. "What a stubborn old ass. Went after me with a two by four. That man was a jockey, for Christ's sake. A five foot high midget and he was wielding a slat nearly as big as he was...mind you," her Dad's voice was quietly reflective. "It was an improvement on her Ma. She…"

"Went after you with a shotgun," Mikaela gritted her teeth. One finger, two fingers… "Dad, I _know_ all this. I'll be describing this to a therapist one day. Why are you still _talking_?" Mikaela squeezed her eyes shut. She hadn't meant that to sound so harsh. She just wanted him to save his strength.

He continued. "I guess it's just easier."

"Easier than?" Third finger, bruised but not broken, at least not as far as she could feel.

"Thinking," her Dad answered simply. "So many things are easier than thinking. Like stealing was easier than working, silence was easier than talking. This is easier than thinking about my baby girl in a giant alien robot war. Much easier."

Mikaela froze. "Um…I'm sorry I didn't tell you before…"

"Keeping secrets hardly has me throwing stones, Mickey."

He'd meant it as an out, but it still stung like hell. "Um…" Mickey tried out the next sentence in her head a few times. "It just all sort of happened, Daddy. I didn't mean for it to. Once it was started, I had to finish it."

"For the Sam kid?"

Mikaela flushed. "For myself too. No regrets. No wishes. I felt like I didn't know who I was until I knew I could drive backwards down a street with a half an alien robot shooting stuff out of the way while we took on an evil tank." Damn, did she just say all that? She must be colder than she thought. And _damn_, her fingers just slipped.

"_Driving backwards down a_…Mickey, I think you and I need to have a serious talk."

"Birds and bees Dad, already way ahead of you," Mikaela grinned, despite herself, despite the cold water which had just lapped up over her lap.

"Oh no, baby, this is going to be much more biblical than that!" She could almost see her father's wasted expression on the other side of the branch. There was a spitting noise and a rustle of needles – the trunk had stabbed through the driver's side window as it took the whole wreck into the lake, and there was much more greenery choking her Dad's side. However, the old trunk was making his side more buoyant than Mikaela's tilting passenger side. There was no light, anywhere. Mikaela had never been scared of the dark until now.

"So…what kind of car does he drive?"

"What?" Mikaela paused in her subtle tugging.

"Your boyfriend – come on, spill. Make, model, all the good stuff."

"What…right now?"

"Now, Mickey, would be an excellent time to know just what sort of person he w..is."

Her chest felt like it was stabbed with an ice pick. She was suddenly angry – angry at him, angry at Sam, at the 'Bots, at the Decepticons, at everyone. "His car is not just a _thing_! And when you're in it, you're the safest person in the whole world and I'll fight to the death anyone who says different!" She clenched her hand around the handle, impotent with fury and fear and grief.

Her Dad made a reflective sound. "He must be a hell of a kid to make you want to be in the middle of this Mickey. He must be okay. Your Ma used to defend _me_ like that…did you know? Whenever they hinted I was a loser, she was right there, in their faces – she grabbed that shotgun off her mama and busted the stock on faces to get through to them. You drove around with a gun toting alien. You're like her only…fitted with a better engine. The very best. I'm proud of you."

The handle broke off in Mikaela's hand. She started to cry as the tilt became worse, and the water bubbled up past her torso. She couldn't feel her legs. She couldn't feel anything but pain, pain, pain.

There was nothing but darkness and despair.

Then there was light.

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Okay. _Okay_. He had to focus. Sam shut his eyes, and willed the helpless feelings away. Being helpless had never stopped him before.

Starscream was doing something out of his range of vision. He didn't talk much. He didn't have to. The corpse…body…wreck?...of Jazz was lying next to him, but Sam couldn't look at him. It didn't seem right to stare. Scratch that – it _wasn't_ right. And when this was over, Sam would personally man the shovel to get Jazz back to where he belonged. He deserved nothing less.

The metal was warm beneath him now from the discharges. Sam was turning the flat slab into a hotplate. He had to find a way off it before he was fried like a hamburger patty. He had, with a certain amount of pain, managed to twist his head, and take a look at his shackles. They were simple, metal bands. Flattened half circles, rising from the flat metal slab seamlessly. No locks, no chains, there wasn't even a weld seam, though if a race was ever going to be experts in welding, these would be it.

But what could Sam do, even if there were locks? What the hell could be do, stapled to this thing on the ground, the body of a friend resting silently beside him?

"What the hell," Sam hissed through clenched teeth after the world had briefly drowned in white again. "Are you doing over there? 'Cause, you know, you've strapped down minor and people might get some funny ideas. How about we try for a little honesty in the relationship, huh? That is, you know, assuming you've ever heard of the word. Let's say it together now – hon-es-ty. The act of telling the truth, acting without deception, fallacy…"

A giant hand pressed a divot into the rock by Sam's slab with a loud, echoing _crack_.

"…denial." Sam croaked, looking up into those red, mad eyes. He quailed, slightly, at the twisted metal face above him, wondering with a few mad, panicked brain cells how all that metal could give the face such expression. After all, Sam thought hysterically, hatred takes a lot of facial elasticity.

_Think of Jazz, think of Jazz, think of Jazz_, the calmer cells, the ones grown after Mission city, prompted him, frantically broadcasting over his wailing panic.

The anger came back. Sam took a breath.

"Don't you flesh-insects ever _shut up_?" Starscream's metallic hiss of a voice beat Sam's eardrums like loud heavy metal.

"Don't you Decepticons ever win a fight? Oh, that's right, _you don't_!" Sam yelled back. "You're a fugitive, you rusting pile of junk. You're alone and friendless and when the Autobots find you you're going to be pieces of a car wreck strewn all over the junkyard. And that's nothing compared to what you're buddies would do, right? I'll bet they'll be real _happy_ with you after you turned tailpipe and hauled aft in the middle of a battle. I remembered that. Traitor squared. Traitor's traitor!" Sam yelled in one long, profane, slightly hysterical stream. Because that had been bothering him. Sam was pretty sure Megatron wasn't the forgive and forget type, so why would a patented con artist like Starscream want bringing him back?

Another infuriated _crack_ and this time a spray of geological shrapnel showered Sam, and he sputtered and blinked, trying to get the dust out of his mouth and eyes.

There was a hum, followed by a hissing crackle. Sam opened his watering eyes, and stared into the eerie glow – but what he would remember later was that fact that it was so hot, that the rock dust hovering in the air was vaporised in little, sparking flashes. Sam felt his hair sizzle.

"How does it feel, human, to be this close to death?" Starscream inquired idly, his smaller arm cannon casually twelve inches from Sam's face. Even thought it was the smallest, it was still bigger than Sam's head.

Sam took a breath, and regretted it. The air in front of him was superheated. It burned. "Not really all that close," he rasped. "You need me."

The cannon remained. Sam stared at it defiantly, sweat evaporating off his skin as it formed, every cell in his body screaming that he'd better be right.

The cannon moved out of his vision, leaving spots of colour dancing into front of his eyes.

"Ha! Haha!" Relief flushed his body, marinating him in adrenaline and endorphins. Pain faded slightly, his brain overloaded with pleasure and relief. "Got you! Got you, you cheap soviet clunker! You complete, smoke belching lemon! You _need_ me! I can say what ever I damn well please, you rattling, broke down, anathema to engineering!"

A hand descended, a finger uncurled and a spike folded out of the digit, at delicate as a scalpel at its point, which rested like a sharp needle at Sam's Adam's apple. "I may need you _alive,_" Starscream hissed. "But I do not need you whole. So unless you would like me to remove you're noisemaking organs, I suggest you do not _push _me, you inferior organic insect."

"Fine," Sam muttered, coming down off his reckless high. "Wanna shake on it?"

Starscream hissed a laugh, running the needle up and down, just hard enough to scratch. "Look at you, puny ape-descendant. Imagine how easy it would be for me to squeeze every last drop of life out of you. A single ball of metal no bigger than your thumb can do it. Ha! And you believe you can win? _Against us_?" His hissing laughter echoed around the place as he stomped around the prone Sam.

"We did win. Against you," Sam muttered. "Megatron wasn't killed by the 'Bots, you know." Although, Sam conceded silently, they did actually do most of the work. "You know, Megatron? Harbinger of Death? The guy you betrayed? Why exactly are you, of all idiots, trying to bring him back? Is cringing at his feet a programmed response for you, or do you just like being Megatron's bitch?"

Starscream was fiddling with machinery that was over Sam's head and out of his vision range. He wondered where it had all come from, but it wasn't like they wouldn't know how to build it, would they? "You are incorrect. With your pitiful excuse for a processor, I am not surprised. I have no interest in being at Megatron's heel. It is the other Decepticons that cannot spark a single turbine without _his_ order. So if it is Megatron that programs their command protocols, then it is Megatron they will get."

There was a thump next to Sam, and what looked like a boxy, 'Bot size metal suitcase landed there.

"What's that?" Sam mumbled. He could feel the whole energy build up thing happening again. They were getting easier to ride out, but it still felt like he was being fried alive. His chest was a white knot of pain. The black, star speckled sky above became more speckled with white, then blotched with it, as the blackness was pushed away from the whiteness building beneath and then…._hisscrackleBOOM_. Sam's body arced and convulsed a couple of times before it settled again. Ow, ow, ow….his wrists and ankles were aching where he's wrenched against his shackles.

The box thing was glowing, faintly. Sam turned his head to look at it blearily.

"Ahh, All Spark," Starscream's voice came from far away. "Do you know what this, boy? It is a spark. A small, portable type of spark. It can hold energy enough to maintain a memory system. Megatron was very paranoid, human. He copied his memories, his system complexities. I would not expect you to understand the processes involved, but part of my usefulness to him was keeping his…fragments safe. And now," Starscream slipped a few extra components into their places. "With the parts from the wreck over there, there is just enough to let a Megatron rise again – a part of Megatron, with no legs, no weapons, no eyes. Controlled," Starscream nodded in satisfaction. "Properly controlled."

But Sam didn't hear the last bit. "You took Jazz's heart," his voice was as flat as sheet glass. "You took his heart. There aren't even going to be _screws_ left when the 'Bots are finished with you!" The anger was even more powerful than the sparks. It was hotter, harder and far more merciless. His fists were clenched so tight it hurt.

"I had no need of this wreck's spark," Starscream thumped the inert shell with his foot, causing Sam to howl with rage. "That backfiring medic locked the thing inside. I just needed the memory processors, they are the one thing I cannot create. I did not need many. Enough for Megatron to be just alive. And then the others will have Megatron and Megatron," Starscream was smug. "Will have _me_. And _you_ boy," he sneered at the trapped human, clipping cables to the slab. "You will supply the power needed."

"Are you insane? I am not giving your boss a jump start! No way in hell!"

Starscream shrugged. "I don't see that you have any choice, human. The currents will run from the slab to the spark whether you like it or not. Just like a human," Starscream chuckled. "To think you can control everything around you. Ha! You are just a conduit, boy. You have no more control over the All Spark than I have over the burning heart of the stars. And what will _your_ people think, boy, when they learn you have brought their enemy back to life? What will the weak Autobots think when their biggest human ally is responsible for the continuation of their scourge. I believe you had a word for it," he leaned over Sam triumphantly. "A traitor squared? A traitor's traitor."

Suddenly so angry he couldn't straight, Sam tensed his body in a futile attempt to strike the ugly metal alien. And ended up striking him.

The fat spark arced out of his chest and struck the Decepticon full in the face. It crackled along his chin and neck, leaving scorched marks. Starscream reared back, clawing it his face, hissing and screeching. A series of high clicks and growls rang out. Sam had a feeling the Cybertronian words would be translated thusly – '#!$&#!!'

Wait a minute, Sam thought as he coughed and gasped, laughing his head off hysterically. Did _I_ do that?

---------------------------------------------------------------

Miles was thrown about in the back seat as Barricade took turns and spins wildly through the night. Yelping, he flung himself back as a light detached itself from the radio, folding and winding in impossible ways, to become a sharp ring of spikes that extended towards him. "_Did you come in contact with the All Spark_?" It demanded in a voice that was like metal plates grinding together.

Shocked, there was a pause before Miles could answer. "What?"

"_Did you have contact with the All Spark?_" The thing yelled.

"What the hell is that? What are you? Let me out!" He swung his feet around and kicked out at the window, and all it did was hurt his feet. He kicked again anyway.

Barricade found a tack. "_What is your connection with Username Ladiesman217_?"

"Use…You mean Sam? What the hell do you want with Sam? What the hell have you _done_ with Sam?"

"_You will answer_!"

"I don't think so!" Miles lunged forward and grabbed the spiky thing, yanking and pulling at it twisting it, trying by sheer force to rip it loose. It threw him hard left, then hard right, slamming him hard against either window, stronger than it looked.

"_You have All Spark traces on you_," the spiky eye wavered up and down, scanning it body. It shot down to his pocket and Miles flinched as the jeans ripped. The spikes closed like a claw and extracted Sam's note, and the half melted pen. "_Here. Where did you acquire these_?"

"Kiss. My. Ass!" Miles snapped. He snatched the note back out of the clumsy claw. "This isn't yours, you….whatever you are."

"_I am the Decepticon Barricade – I have wiped out races much more powerful than you, puny insect! You will answer!_"

The seatbelt wrapped around him, pulling him back so hard that air rushed out of him, and he couldn't draw it back in.

"_You will answer, or you will die_!"

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Epps pushed his foot down to the floor, keeping the erratically weaving red taillights in his sights. He was also talking on his cell phone. It was ironic that he was chasing a cop car, in that case. Through the woods, of all things.

"Bring everyone, Mr Secretary. We've got one civilian boy taken hostage and a level one attack on a civilian complex. We'll need the Air Force – F18's when the bad guys are all located and blackhawks right now for air recon and tracing. The civilian technicians and I are going to attempt to extract the boy before we lose trace…..yes sir. Will check in every ten minutes." He tossed the phone over his shoulder and took a sharp turn, screeching and sliding to keep Barricade in his range. The car engine groaned in overstressed fury.

"We haven't got long before this thing burns out. You guys got anything?" Epps risked a glance over his shoulder, where Glen and Maggie were contorted awkwardly over their equipment, gutting wires and tapping keys and dropping tools as they were thrown about by the ride. They babbled in their own language.

"I dunno, maybe. From what data we've managed to glean from the Autobots, there are certain frequencies that can interfere with sensor processing within their internal…." Glen trailed off at the exasperated look on the Tech Sergeant's face. "We _might,_ and I really mean _might_, as in at most thirty percent sure, that we can strike a blow by bombarding him with a hodgepodge of signals."

"Think of it like," Maggie brushed her hair out of her eyes. "Someone putting a speaker right next to your ear and turning up the volume, and then playing the loudest, most annoying music in the world."

"Country and Western?" Epps raised an eyebrow, grinning.

"Nah, definitely folk music," Glen pushed his glasses up. "You know what they do to induce sleep deprivation, right? Loud white noise. It's like that."

"What if he can shut off his ears, or whatever?"

"You did hear the _might_, right? But, if our information is correct, he won't be able to shut off _all_ his sensors and receivers – at least, not and still be able to function. We're not just hitting his ears. We're hitting all his receivers, with a myriad of signals. At the very least, he will be driven away by the influx."

"Or…um…driven to destroy the source," Maggie added. "Um…which is us."

"But it will force him to stop?" Epps clarified. He reached for the gun locker on the paasenger side floor, which was now equipped with a 105 sable semi-automatic.

"Maybe. No guarantees. And we're gonna have to be extremely close. We don't have enough power," Glen thumped one of the machines in the back. "Even with the wireless energy being sent by the satellites, to give the signals the range."

Epps glanced ahead at their prey. "How extremely close?"

"Ever play bumper cars?"

Epps cursed. "Can you wire the car battery into it, or something?"

Maggie gave him a long look. "Um…we're already doing that. What did you think the outlet on the dashboard was for?" She pointed to the cigarette lighter port on the dash, which looked like Medusa hair, sprouting thick cables.

"Damn! No wonder we're not going fast enough – this is a hybrid car. Look, can you save power until we actually catch up to them? We might be able to catch him – he's gone off road and at the risk of tooting the human horn, this car is better designed for it. I'll need more power to the engines."

Maggie grinned. "Aye, Captain. I'll talk to Scotty. Glen and I will do the preliminary with just the portable generator, but keep in mind," she yanked the Medusa hair free. "If we don't catch him soon, we're not going to have the power to do anything." Maggie added quietly. "And just in case this doesn't work, we did get a signal out."

"Gotcha," and Epps went the only way he knew how to go; fast.

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Bumblebee raced down the road, Ratchet keeping pace with him, mile for mile for mile.

"_Bumblebee, I am receiving signals from two different locations. Optimus signals from the north, saying he is tracking Starscream. I have also received a signal from the human machinists, saying Barricade has taken a human hostage – not Sam. They are north west._"

His internal map abruptly flashed up – through it was difficult to describe the multi-function sensation of an Autobot at full power. One red line north, one yellow line north west.

"_Splitting up is a bad idea, Bee._"

The map image folded into a giant '??'.

Right. Ratchet didn't have any better ideas. They were well out of the city now, and Ratchet, at least, would not have far to go as they were heading that way originally.

"_Allllright. You get your way as usual, little one. I will contact the others and bring them. But,_" the brightly coloured ambulance rolled in front of the Camaro and brought them both to a screeching halt. "_**You **__will kindly keep in mind that your body was put under enormous stress these past few hours and you are in no condition for an out-and-out fight. If the time comes - You. Will. Retreat. That's doctor's orders, superior officer's orders, and trusting friend's request. I've got you coming, going and standing still. Understood?_"

Bumblebee flashed is headlights. _Okay._

"_I will hold you to it, little one. Good luck. I will not be long._"

The little Camaro nudged the bigger vehicle affectionately, and then took off too fast north west. Ratchet sighed. "_You might also try sticking to the speed limit!_" he sent after the little 'Bot, in vain. Younglings!

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The water drained out abruptly, and the truck shuddered and rocked in the air. The view out of the cracked windscreen rose and wheeled abruptly, glowing with light. The tree trunk shifted, and Mikaela was inadvertently swatted with a few needle spiked thin branches. Her Dad groaned out. "More insanity. Mickey, baby, there should be a handgun in the glove box."

"A…I can't believe you still have that. It's not like you ever used it!" Mikaela fumbled with her freed hand, but the box cover was warped.

Wait, wait, her cold fogged brain sparked a few random thoughts. Hadn't this happened before to her? Something about a truck, being lifted…

The truck stopped rocking and swaying, and simply landed on solid ground. There was a familiar face peering into the windows.

"Optimus?" Mikaela croaked, willing her fuzzy eyes to _really_ focus. She hoped the picture didn't resolve into a slightly less friendly alien.

"Mikaela, are you well?"

"I…" Mikaela flinched at a scraping and cracking din. The tree truck was extracted from the truck slowly.

"Easy big guy," said a familiar voice that Mikaela couldn't see through the moving pine screen. "Gently. We don't want to move them if possible."

"I _can_ be subtle when necessary, Captain," Ironhide's grouchy rejoinder boomed out. The last of the tree was gently tugged loose, taking the door with it and leaving Mikaela's vision clear. "Dad?"

There was blood down his face red marks all along his torso and legs. The tree had clearly done some damage passing through his window. "Okay…good guys, or bad guys?" he mumbled, his eyes glazed over with shock. "You said there were two types. One of 'em Air Force, right? That means it could go over either way."

Mikaela smiled through her tears. "Good guys, Dad."

"Oh, let me guess," Will Lennox hunkered down at the drivers side door hole with a big, white toothed smile. "Marines, right?"

One eye was cracked open. "Problem, flyboy?"

Will shook his head. "Not at all, jarhead. Of course, I'm not the one being rescued here." Will held out a hand. "Will Lennox."

"Oh, right, the Captain. Wayne," Wayne shook the hand shakily.

"Wayne Banes?" Will smirked.

"'fraid so."

"Grandma and Grandpa had no sense of humour," Mikaela leaned forward and tried to get a good look at her father.

"Don't knock it honey. Your mother thought it was so funny that she wanted to call you Raine."

Mikaela tried 'Raine Banes' under her breath. Nah. "Daddy, are you okay?"

"Just a scratch," the big man mumbled, he was slumping down further as Will freed him from the seat belt.

"Daddy?" Mikaela whispered.

"Mikaela," Will caught her gaze steadily. "He'll be fine, girl."

Mikaela closed her eyes and nodded. The Captain would know. He must have seen enough people close to death, right? He certainly wouldn't say it to make her feel better; he was too honest and real for that.

"Even a Marine could survive a tree," Lennox gave a smirk to the bigger man, but very gently manoeuvred him to lie prone, half out of the truck. "Barely."

"Shaddup," Wayne grunted, half awakened by the movement.

"Give him to me, Lennox," Ironhide's giant hand slid into the space outside the truck, making a flat platform, which Lennox directed the large frame onto.

"Mikaela," a voice gently interrupted from her own side. "I'll help you out," Optimus prised the door off like other people peel off wrapping paper. One massive finger digit gently tugged her seatbelt next to her shoulder, and snapped it off. "Just turn your back and slide out onto my hand."

Doing as instructed, Mikaela was lifted as gently as a porcelain doll, flat on her back, out of the twisted wreck. She was deposited very gently on the grass.

"Okay, honey, are you okay?" Will asked as he checked over her father, a big red canvas bag sat next to them. He looked over his shoulder at her – her black hair made the whiteness of her face even more stark. "I need you to take your own vitals. Neck pain, chest pain, torso pain?"

She shook her head, while Will strapped on another piece of gauze onto Wayne.

"Dizziness? Headaches? How about movement? Fingers and toes all responding?"

"My legs are numb, but my toes move. I think it's just the cold water," Mikaela responded, shivering. Optimus obligingly crouched down and extended an arm next to her, blowing warm air out of small vent situated there. She smiled at him. "Where did the first aid kit come from?"

"Me." Ironhide sounded disgruntled. "For some irrationally paranoid reason, these parental units insist on having a medical supply pack that outweighs their progeny. And, might I add, I am a weapon specialist and _not_ a cargo carrier." He shot his human an irritated look.

"Hey, if _you_ want to argue with Sarah go _right_ ahead, big guy. I will be safely in the next time zone," he sat back on his heels. "Look, I'm no medic but I think his leg is busted. This is the limit of the field medicine I've been taught. We have to get him into town."

"No, we can wait!" Mikaela sat up suddenly, thawed and fully functioning. "You have to save Sam! Starscream," Mikaela turned imploringly to Optimus. "Starscream got him, Optimus, he just took him. You have to find him!"

"Hey!" Simmons voice called, over the sound of an approaching engine. Familiar flashing lights let up the surface of the lake, and Simmons rode on the ambulance's mounting step, grinning smugly, like he had produced the medic out of thin air. "Anyone call for an ambulance?"

"Ratchet, where's Bee? Don't tell me you left him on his own!" Ironhide reprimanded angrily as the medic transformed back into mech mode.

"Ironhide, you know full well he gets his way no matter what _we_ say. Now," he clapped his hands together. "What do we have here?"

Wayne opened his eyes. He shut his eyes. "That one kind of makes field hospitals seem bearable," he said weakly.

"Lennox," Simmons strode up, all bristling command, which Lennox completely ignored. "We need to move out. Home base is getting reports of wholesale destruction of civilian targets, hostage situations and electrical discharge to the north west of here which is screwing up satellite imaging. Oh, and a second one of _those_," he jerked his chin at the conversing 'Bots. "Spotted and hostile."

Will blinked. "All that today, huh?

Simmons rolled his eyes. "That's just in the last hours. _Try_ to keep up."

-------------------------------------------------------


	6. Chapter Five: The Living Bridge

There was something really bothering Sam

Disclaimer: Transformers belong to Hasbro, and Paramount, and Michael Bay…and…oh, various others. The author of this profitless fic doesn't own it, or anything that valuable.

Warnings: Mild Language, Adult Themes and Situations, Intense Action etc…

Authors Notes: Wow, this did take a while. It didn't actually take long to write, it's just that I lost the thread a couple of weeks ago and fought a hard battle to get it back. I'm glad I got it back though. Please, enjoy and review. I realise it's not as chunky as the others, but I didn't want to push my luck drawing it out too far.

Thank you and warm praise goes to all my very, _very_ patient reviewers – I'm slow, but I get there in the end!

--

Chapter Five: The Living Bridge

--

There was something really bothering Sam.

_Okay_, there was the standard being-held-hostage, chained-to-a-slab, shooting-lightning thing that bothered him; but a small, almost negligible thing was starting to seep to the surface, filling up the space where he didn't think about Bumblebee.

Sam thought he was going nuts.

Not grief-roasted nuts, or 'I've been kidnapped by a _what_' nuts. _Nuts_ nuts.

It had started with the hand gripping his. Except there was no hand gripping his. He _knew_ this and he didn't see one of his friends or his parents or his dead relatives standing around so he wasn't hallucinating. The pressure of the grip was really there. If Sam could clench one of his swollen hands, he imagined he could fold around the appendage, and feel every finger.

But that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was when he tried convince himself it was wishful thinking, just another random spark inside an overloading brain. It wasn't like he hadn't been having a few - sometimes smells that weren't there would overwhelm the funk of ozone, or he'd see coloured lights, sounds would diminish or become unbearable by turns, but so far everything he'd smelt or saw or heard had been actually there; just amplified or twisted. He thought to himself, _it's not there_…

_Tactile stimulation of upper motor appendages is for conveying positive emotional states, support, and comfort._

Okay. That was _his_ brain and _his_ mind-voice. But that didn't sound like him.

Starscream wasn't here. He was…around, somewhere. He didn't know if it was better or worse that he couldn't see him, but it was something. Frantically, Sam tugged at the too tight restraints, just to be sure, but there no more give than there had been ten minutes ago when Starscream had vanished after their confrontation and Sam had started to breathe again.

_Okay. Okay. You're Sam Witwicky, you're in high school, you're cursed or something because weird stuff is always happening to you and you might just be dying_.

_I am not going to cease. With every start, there is a cycle to start again_.

Sam thought _what?_

Sam thought _I am._

Sam thought. _I am what? Because there are enough scary things to talking here without having to argue with myself._

Sam thought. _I am here_.

Sam felt warmth slide across the inside of his skin. Not the white hot burning of the sparks. Not the sledgehammer heat pounding in his chest. A nice warmth.

Sam thought. _I am here_.

_Who are you_? Sam closed his eyes, his muscles bunching and twitching as the sudden chest pain stabbed briefly.

_I am Sam. Wait. With the end of the muscle contraction of blood, comes the cycles again._

Sam tried to think past the blinding pain spreading outwards, radiating from his very bones.

_Do you mean the beat?_

Lightning arced from him, from his hands, his feet, the world suddenly white hot as the surface of the sun.

--

"Wait, wait, why do I have to handle the gun?" Maggies protested, hefting the bulky 105 sable round revolving gun. This was no derringer here. It was practically a rocket launcher.

"Because I'm handling the car and Glen's handling the equipment," Epps didn't take his eyes off the tail lights ahead. "I don't care what you see in the movies – fighting and shooting can't be done together. Maggie, we really don't have time for anything else here."

Maggie sighed. She dragged the heavy thing onto her lap and wound down the window.

"Just pull the trigger when I say," Epps voice dropped into a order like growl as he got in touch with his inner bad ass. "Okay doughnut, make some noise!" Epps stepped on the gas, and they jolted forwards, engine suddenly screaming under stress.

"I _really_ disapprove of that code name," Glen squeaked, rattling across his laptop.

Maggie screamed as the taillights flashed towards them, and suddenly they slapped into the back of the evil police car.

From behind them came the white scream of audio feedback.

--

"…_where is…ggk..dh..kkkf..tttktktk..kakarrrtsstt..tttt…."_

Miles sucked in air desperately. It was like breathing with an anvil on his chest, but hey, it was _breathing_. Scrambling desperately he yanked and yanked at the terrible band constricting his chest and kicked his feet on the seat, slithering up and free like soap from the wet hand. He choked and coughed spasmodically.

The dash in front of his eyes was sparking and glowing and…seemed to be changing shape. Radio signals blared loud through the speakers, but they jumped and changed so fast that it was a meaningless babble. Bits and pieces shot out and retracted, the roof even seemed to bend inwards and pop outwards. It was almost as if the whole car was cringing, sort of. Desperate and panicked, Miles slid down the seat as a sudden impact made him slam his head into the forward headrest. Bracing his shoulders on the back seat, he kicked and kicked and kicked at the dashboard, anything to do damage.

The car shuddered again and Miles realised that they were being rear ended. Guttural clicks and whistles were issuing from the radio now, beeps and hisses providing loud counterpoints to the din. Miles didn't know the language, but the tone was pure Swearese.

Miles, lying full length along the midline of the creepy self-driving thing, realised he must now escape. His thoughts were sluggish, he was dizzy, and he felt like someone had welded a steel band around his chest and stomach. Trying to orientate himself, he didn't seem to have the wherewithal to rise – and just as well, because a 105 sable round shattered the back window, the front window and punched a hole through the bonnet like a nose piercing. It was faster than a blink of an eye – so fast that Miles was blinking and surrounded by clear shards before he'd even realised what just happened.

"_Allspark located…Allspark located…Allspark located Allspark locatedAllsparklocatedAllsparklocated lo-lo-loca…all-cate—pa-al-ted…"_

Miles rolled over, kicked like a swimmer and hauled himself up through the back window. He didn't care that jumping from the speeding car was quite possibly a fatal move, staying in it was definitely a fatal move. Escape was the only thing he could cognitively understand. Something spiked caught hum across the calf and Miles screamed, kicking loose of whatever it was and finding purchase on something, and kicking off, launching through the opening to freedom.

_Oh…crap_, Miles thought dizzily and his body launched out into the night. There was nowhere to go from here but pain.

He expected to dive into the ground like a railroad spike. He'd probably make the worlds funniest corpse, his legs sticking up out of the ground and the rest of him planted like a tree.

Instead he more or less slid across from one car top the other in the world most laughable action stunt instead. He ended up flattened against the windshield, staring into the face of the soldier driving – who looked just as surprised as Miles himself.

Something gripped one of his splayed out arms and it had long nails. "For God's sake, hang on! Hang on!"

The car fishtailed a little, making Miles break out in a sweat as he slid and slipped.

"Slow down, slow down!" someone shrieked, and those nails were _really_ digging in now.

The world, finally, started to slow down.

Miles unclenched his vice grip around the edges of the hood, quietly slid off the car, walked steadily towards the nearest tree, and promptly threw up everything he'd eaten for the last year.

"Okay kid, how about we take a seat for sec, okay?" Hands directed him gently to the ground where Miles shook and shook and shook like he had hypothermia.

"What's your name?" the soldier sat on his haunches in front of him.

"Miles," Miles grunted, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He pressed it there as his stomach roiled again, his memory on instant replay.

"Okay Miles, I promise you will get all the explanations you want as soon as you tell me what the car told you. Did it say anything? I know it's been a long night kid, but I really need to know, okay?"

"It asked me about Sam," Miles replied vaguely, rubbing his hands across his face.

"Sam Witwicky?" the soldier guy raised an eyebrow at the other two – stout coke bottle glasses guy and a slender blonde with the blood drawing claws. They hovered in the background, their battle scarred SUV skewed across the path, doors open, behind them.

"You know Sam?" he looked from one to the other. "My friend Sam?" Suddenly, his mind briefly broke surface from the numbing adrenaline come down. "We've got to follow him…it…the car thing, we've got the follow it." He lurched unsteadily to his feet. "Come on. It knows where Sam is!"

--

Starscream checked the power buffer Excellent! Already over half full. The human lay completely still after his last burst. Life sign scanners indicated there was still life, however.

Starscream was almost delirious with satisfaction. It was all working so perfectly. He'd have Megatron's voice and Megatron's codes and Megatron's wisdom – he'd have Megatron without actually having Megatron. It was perfect – subtle, controllable and foolproof. Those other Decepticon fools wouldn't even realise who was really leading them, they wouldn't dare to question him, they wouldn't dare invoke the wrath of Megatron. Megatron left dissenters in pieces on his office walls.

And then the universe got him by the bolts again. He received a signal from Barricade.

"_What is it? I'm on a mission!_"

"_We are under attack Starscream. I request emergency assistance and conference. We cannot talk on long distance frequency with the humans listening in._"

Starscream invented desperately. "_I cannot possibly come in time to be of any assistance._"

"_Don't play youngling games with me you back firing junkyard! My sensors show you are in the immediate vicinity._"

Starscream ground his gears. "_Do not speak to me so, Barricade. Or are you forgetting who is in command in Megatron's absence?"_

"_Megatron is dead, Starscream. Unless you have evidence to the contrary._"

"_Whom_," Starscream replied smugly. "_Do you think sent me on this mission? His coda is right there, Barricade. Do you dare defy Megatron, the only true leader of the Decepticons?_" There, stick that up your tailpipe.

But Barricade wasn't a fool. "_You must verify with me face to face. Security protocol demands it. I will meet you…_"

"_You will not…!_" Barricade finding out would be extremely bad."_I will meet you. Come to the following coordinates. I am still second in command, until _you_ can prove otherwise._" He shut off the connection, his sensors showing red as he became enraged. Just once, couldn't the universe smile on him? Just once!

--

"Okay, take him up!" Will circled his fist at the chopper pilot.

"I'll see you soon, daddy!" Mikaela yelled over the whining of the rotors. The air blasted her hair every which way. The caged stretcher was slowly lifted up out of her reach, until her blowing hair blocked her view. Groping blindly, she felt the Captain take her arm and lead her way from the downdraft.

"Okay, understood!" Simmons was yelling into his phone. He snapped his phone shut. "We have to get moving. The think tank finally came through Those wonks and your sergeant called in a report that a Decepticon had grabbed a kid straight off the highway and that they were moving to intercept. They haven't checked back in yet – that was twenty minutes ago."

"By 'those wonks' you mean Maggie and Glen," Mikaela glared at him.

Simmons shrugged in a who cares way. "You can ask them yourself, because that's where we're going."

"What? If it was on the highway, it couldn't have been Starscream – Starscream took Sam, we need to find him!"

"Look little girl, I hate to tell you this but your little friend is probably dead. Do you think he stood much of a chance? This is a Decepticon whose location we know."

"Sam is alive, you cretin," Mikaela hissed at him. "If Starscream wanted him dead, he wouldn't have taken him. You can do what you like, _I'm_ going looking for Sam."

"I don't think so!" Simmons snarled. "This is a classified op and I'm not having any potential security breaches – at all. You can come with us, or you can come with us in cuffs!"

"Enough!" Lennox broke. "Simmons, I'm only going to say this once – Sam is alive until I personally see his corpse. Okay? I don't want to hear a word otherwise. And as for the classified op, that would put me in charge not you, so I'll decide who goes and who stays and that includes you. Mikaela," he turned to her. "Unfortunately, the asshole is right. The attack on the highway is a known location, it could be our only lead for finding Sam. Running around half cocked isn't going to help – especially if there are two different enemy bad guys for us to deal with."

"What about Bumblebee?" Mikaela turned to Optimus and the others, who were in vehicle form now. "You said he was going after Sam, Ratchet?"

"_Yes, but I can't trace the Allspark energy any more. It appears as if it's found something to ground into that has hidden it's presence. Bumblebee would probably still be able to track it, but I can not._"

"_We will go and find the Decepticon who has taken the other child. I am having difficulty understanding why they would be taken in the first place; but it must be important. The other Decepticon will probably know where Starscream has taken Sam,"_ Optimus added calmly.

Ironhide revved menacingly. "_And he'll talk if he knows what's good for him._"

"Let's saddle up," Lennox nodded to Simmons. "What'd they say about air support?"

"On it's way."

--

Sam sat on Bumblebee's hood, parked on the overhang in the meadows. Overhead, the starry sky wheeled past. It was once of those perfect peaceful moments, with just the ground, and the sky, and his best bud.

Although something was nagging at the back of his mind though. Something important. He looked up at the stars, and wondered which one had Bumblebee had come from. He opened his mouth to ask.

"That one," said a voice.

Sam turned his head. And saw himself, laying next to him on the bonnet. The other Sam was pointing.

Overhead, the stars swirled like snow in a blizzard. The moon loomed like a giant face, glow lighting the universe with soft light. The stars kaleidoscoped and the colours glowed indescribably, as if they'd just been invented. Galaxies of perfect, exquisite symmetry folded out like butterfly wings, glittering motes of stars pooled and curved, rivers of light curled through multicoloured gases and they danced around each other like expert waltzers, spinning and weaving and dipping and braiding. The only sound was the song, which was half a beat and half a hum, like high voltage with a heart beat. But it was only subtle, only there if you listened for it.

It was so…beautiful.

Sam was crying, because he could _see_ it, he could _see_ the universe; he felt how huge it was, how magnificent and how alive it was, and he didn't feel small in it because it was all a part of him. It was like opening his hand, and finding the planet Earth cupped inside of it for him to admire.

"Yes, it is beautiful," his doppelganger was crying too. "I have never seen it quite this way before. But it is…Beautiful."

"Who are you, anyway?" Sam asked.

"I'm you," Sam replied. "Sort of. Sort of you, except seem from a different angle. Like a car in a car yard. Looks like a wreck. Then you look again, and it looks like a sweet ride."

"Or a disguised alien," Sam sighed. "My life is weird. I sitting here watching the Universe – Abridged Version and talking to myself. Except that usually I'm not actually, you know, talking _to_ myself. And you're not me, by the way. I know me and I'm pretty sure you're not."

"I am you, Sam," Optimus replied from where he now stood over Sam. "You from a different angle." Overhead, the stars became a delicate, glittering matrix coalescing into a burning heart of a star – a spark. "Made in a different way. The same courage that drives you from childhood to adulthood is the same drive that makes me fight the Decepticons. Stepping into the unknown, defending what you believe; this makes us the same."

"Dumb sense of adventure is all you need to be a soldier," Captain Will Lennox said from his cross legged perch on top of Bumblebee. Sam craned his neck to look at him upside down. Overhead, the matrix became a crazed impression of a root system; delicate fine hairs pulsing and alive, the human nervous system. "And you're a soldier, so you're me. From a certain point of view."

:"I'm not going to start seeing Obi-Wan, am I?" Sam asked worriedly. "Because that'd be one step too far into the weird."

"I'm trying to _help_ you Sam," Mikaela lay on his chest, warm and real. "I wanted to survive, it was imperative that I did. I suppose you might call it a duty. All things strive, Sam. And when they strive, to me is where they go."

Sam blinked sleepily. "To you? Like…a messiah, or something?"

His mother grimaced and crossed her arms from where she stood next to him. "I am sorry. Your mind is not wired to understand everything that I am, Sam. I can only use means which your mind understands. That limits the amount of truth I can convey."

"Look at it like this, bud," Miles poked him in the temple from where he lay, upside down, across the windshield. "There are things that are alive, right? Trees. Animals. You. And then there things which aren't alive. I don't mean things that have died – I mean things that were never alive. Rocks. Air. Stars. Content and container, see?"

"Except, it's not really that simple," his dad was digging at the ground, wearing his gardening stuff. "They can change around. Given enough time, life can form from unthinking clay and mineral sludge. Given enough time, life can fade into nothing but ash and dust. Did you ever think there was a…a bridge between the two? Alive, unalive," his father shook an empty hand, tilting it this way and that. "And something in between."

"You don't have a word for it, I think." His doppelganger was back again, looking at him ruefully.

"Could you…stop changing like that? It's very confusing," Sam requested weakly.

Other-Sam grimaced. "Sorry. I affect you and you affect me. Content and container changing places, see? I'm giving you a _perception_ and you are giving me a _form_. You must understand, this is hard for me. I've never had one before. It's hard to use a body part you don't, in fact, have. I know this is hard for you. I am trying to help you. It's not your fault that I became more a part of you. I believe you call it duty. I had a duty."

"So, what do we do now?" Sam whispered. "Can you…I don't know….jump out again?"

The other Sam shook his head. "Your body is now a conduit – a bridge. Such is my nature. To destroy the bridge is to make both sides cease to exist."

"Great," Sam lay back to see the still miasmic sky. "So how can you help me?"

"By telling you this; you are talking to yourself, Sam. You are _talking to yourself_. That is the truth, as astute as I can make it. I am you. You are me. There is no you or me. It has always been this way. You are now much closer, that's all. That's all that has changed. You think this power is out of your control? It is _you_ Sam. Your hands, your heart, your head. Just bigger. To get out, direct it into the right conduit. That's all you need to do."

Sam opened his eyes, and immediately wished he was dead. His chest felt like some had used it as an arrow target – and the archer had been firing all day. He wasn't lying on his car, he was back on the burning slab.

For moment, all he could do was breathe. He watched the still stars, and was momentarily sorry that they hadn't looked the way they had…inside his head.

"The right conduit?" He croaked and looked over at the ugly block that he had mentally dubbed the Evil Box. Nope, definitely not.

He looked over at Jazz, laying sprawled on the ground….

Sam kept staring.

This was _never_ going to work.

--

_Buenos noches amigos_, let's get this party on the road!" Figg threw his bags into the chopper. He was still favouring his leg, but handling gunnery on a black hawk was hardly legwork. "What are we waiting for, _move _it _muchacho_, let's go!" He hustled the pilot into the hawk and slapped on his radio headset. "Okay, everyone is following my lead here, got it? Move out!"

Black hawks rose into the sky like extremely bad ass dragonflies, and poured towards the combat zone.

--


	7. Chapter Six: That Which Is

Jump starting a car was mildly inconvenient

Disclaimer: Transformers belong to Hasbro, Michael Bay and various hangers-on therein. This work is non-authors. And non-profit.

Warnings: Intense situations, light coarse language, adult themes

Authors Notes: Whoa, finally! I did it again, didn't I? It's just been so hard to pick it up on the weekends, and I've been flat out at work.

But, good news is, we're on the home stretch. One more action packed chapter should do it – bad news, this isn't the wholly action packed chapter, but there's plenty of good stuff.

Thanks so much and big kisses to all my reviewers and readers, without whom this wouldn't be nearly as fun or rewarding.

Please, read and review.

--

Chapter Six: That Which Is

--

Jumpstarting a car was mildly inconvenient. Jumpstarting a sentient alien transforming robot car was turning out to be several million degrees past that.

"Come _on_," Sam hissed through gritted teeth.

Finding a method for directing the arcs had been surprisingly easy. No meditation or supreme focus required here – this power _wanted_ to come out. It bounced and rattled around his puny human form, too massive to control. All he had to do was give it a doorway.

But getting out was just one step. Getting it to do what he wanted, that was another matter altogether. Smoking pits surrounded him, attesting to Sam's lack of aim. To be fair, he was strapped to the ground and had limited field of vision to make use of, but the power itself was barely contained inside his body, and there didn't seem to be any way of steering it once it got out.

This power is me! Hah! Someone should let the…the…whoever it was know that the average American teen isn't a paragon of control and wisdom, Sam thought.

_You have to do this, Sam_, he reminded himself sharply. He cracked jokes to keep himself from screaming, but he knew this was dead eyed serious and whatever leeway he'd been granted by Starscream's disappearance was not going to last forever. He was out of options, on borrowed time, and whether Sam wanted it or not, every jolt sent more power into the Evil Box which threatened to have Megatron popping out like a Hell-Jack unless Sam found a way to stop it. Megatron wasn't coming back. Megatron was _dead_. And Sam, come hell or high water, was going to keep it that way.

Sam groaned as the sparks leapt from him again and they danced around Jazz, peppering little finger tendrils of light into his nooks and crannies but as the sparks died again they still left behind the same empty husk there had been before.

What…what was he doing wrong? Geez, in the city the damn thing had been zapping technical Frankenstein's left and right, the real trick would have been getting it to stop.

_Think. Stop reacting and just think_. He was trying to make something dead alive again.

….Sam thought about that seriously for a moment. That wasn't exactly jumpstarting a car was it? Cars weren't alive when they started and dead when they were switched off. Cars were just things.

Jazz wasn't a _car_. He was a _person_. Sam felt incredibly angry at himself for a moment. Just because they didn't bleed red or run on biology didn't mean they weren't people. In his minds eye Sam saw that glittering matrix of a spark mapped in the heavens, reforming into the glittering filigree of the human nervous system – with no discernable steps in between. Maybe the Allspark saw things that way. Maybe there really was no difference between humans and 'Bots on the most fundamental level.

So _think_ Sam. If that was a human body lying next to you with no breath and no heartbeat, what would you do?

CPR, Sam replied to himself. Be his heart for him, be his body as he forced the chest to move, be his breath and he forced the lungs to…

…breathe…

Sam breathed in. Sam breathed out.

Sparks, tiny and controlled darted between his fingers.

They were different than the huge, fat arcs that had come before them. The arcs jumped and exploded wildly, blind and unthinking and unalive. These sparks condensed gently at his fingertips, carrying a soft glow and faded gently with each exhale, rising and vanishing as softly candle light.

Sam breathed in, and started to glow.

Sam breathed out…..

--

"Miles, nice to meet you." _Thunk._

"Hey man, I'm Glen." _Thud_.

"Maggie Madsen, a pleasure, and…" _Bang_. "_And_ Eppes would you mind terribly if we got there in one _piece_, thank you!"

"Can't lose the sucker now," Epps grunted, bouncing over another rise jerking the wheel sharply to avoid smashing into a tree, sending all three passengers slaloming to the left of the car. Epps raised his eyebrows at Maggie, who was now very nearly in his lap. "Not that I mind in all honesty, but would you mind? Trying to drive here."

Another sharp turn, _thud,_ and all three now hit the right side of the car as the vehicle bounced over the crunchy terrain, which seemed to be all potholes and high bumps.

"Thank you," Epps nodded to the flustered Maggie.

"You're welcome," she retorted, gripping the overhead handle with white knuckled fingers.

"Seatbelts are a wonderful invention," Glen muttered from where he wrestled with his. Miles strapped himself in and reached in to help the hacker disentangle from his equipment.

"So…aliens, huh?" Miles said in a low enough voice not to be heard from the front. Epps had the in built cageyness of a professional black ops soldiers and Maggie was quite frankly _mental_; but Glen had a refreshing lack of secrecy in him. He's probably, in Miles shrewd opinion, be the one least likely to lie.

"Yeah. Funky stuff, huh? It's like one minute I'm sitting at home, minding my own business and the next thing I know we're in a black hawk heading for Hoover Dam and Sam's telling me he bought an alien robot car. It's the coolest thing ever, provided you don't mind being shot at on occasion," Glen waved a hand while the other typed furiously at his laptop. "I mean, I've only been shot at once, but believe me that was enough! The soldiers with us do it all the time and can you say _nuts_, or what?" Glen twirled one finger around his ear. "I guess I can't blame them. The whole freaking universe has turned out to be pretty nuts lately."

"You're telling me," Miles muttered. "So…Sam bought a car which turned out to be an alien…" and wow, wouldn't that take a while to really sink in? "…and they…change shape, obviously…"

"Obviously?" Glen's eyebrows rose.

"Look, the car…the alien car that Sam bought looked like a hunk of junk when he bought it but then he rolled in with a brand spanking new model this morning. Besides, I'm pretty sure that the odds against a race of aliens looking exactly like Earth cars is…astronomically small. So, a) they change shape and b) there are good guys and bad guys because no way in hell would Sam drive around in a bad guy and c) they did something to Sam, and I'd _really_ like to know what it is. So _what_ did they, or you, or all of you, do to him?"

"We didn't do anything to the kid," Epps spoke up from the front, where he'd been listening in. Sam's buddy was turning out to be a surprisingly shrewd guy.

"Oh yeah?" Miles replied. "So shooting lightning is just another phase we go through now? Give me a break, _something _happened to him and you all must know something about it because you aren't surprised in the least about any of this and Sam's my friend, you jackasses, and after being kidnapped – hah! – abducted and nearly killed by some homicidal police car I _think I'm entitled to some answers here_! I think…I think…"

"Glen, get his head between his knees! Breathe, kid, breathe," Epps ordered sharply, not unkindly. 

While Miles struggled to get a grip on his sudden bought of hysteria, Epps focused back on the road. "Look kid, think of this like a war zone, okay? You don't have the training to deal with this so just follow my orders and it'll all be fine," he squinted at a distant set of red taillights. "Okay? You do what we say, we'll get Sam back and it'll all be okay. I promise you that. Can you do that? Otherwise, for your own safety, I will ditch you at the next opportunity. I don't want to and I wouldn't blame you if you wanted me to; but I will. I'm not having these goons running around my planet. No damn way, no damn how. I can't let you get in the way."  
"I'm coming," Miles croaked. "I won't get in the way."

"Are you sure?"

"Sam's my friend."

"These things are killers, kid. You know about Mission City? This isn't like the movies, the good guys don't always win."

"_Sam's my friend_." Miles glared at the soldier through the rear view.

Epps eyes flickered to the kid momentarily. "Fair enough. Feel better?"

Grudgingly Miles had to admit, he did.

Maggie had remained silent, her eyes narrowed and her lips moving as she focused on some inner processing. "Did you just say Sam shot lightning?"

Epps actually turned away from his target for a moment to stare. "Sam did _what_?"

--

Mikaela rode in Ratchet this time, and he was a surprisingly smooth ride. Her official reasoning was that with one human per 'bot, there were ways to deal with both human and alien problems, whichever arose first. Internally, she admitted to herself that she needed to be alone.

Well, you know…

"What's going to happen to Sam, Ratchet?"

Silence. And then…_'I do not think I understand your meaning._' Ratchet sighed inwardly. He was a medic, he dealt in the reality of life and death and pulling one from the other…the subtlety of social contact could be forgiven for passing him by. Blood by any name belonged in the body, the heart had to beat, the spark to glow. You couldn't take away facts like that, no matter how many words you wrapped them in.

"The Allspark. Bumblebee," her hands tightened on the upholstery. "The Decepticons. _Everything_, Ratchet. I mean everything. I just…it was all going to well…" Mikaela thought that should have been a big freaking clue. Every time things looked up, it was only because she was falling down somehow. Her mother, dead. Her father, in prison. Trent (enough said).

Ratchet rumbled to himself. _'Sam didn't kill Bumblebee, if that's what you are worried about.'_ No force in the universe would make Ratchet say that it had been close – not to Mikaela, hunched over in the passenger seat, shrunken and haggard and rubbing her hands compulsively.

"He thought he did," Mikaela murmured distantly. "God, he thought Bumblebee was dead, Ratchet. He thought you were going to punish him for it!"

'_Punish? Surely not! We may be machines but that doesn't mean we can't tell the difference between malice and mistake! Good grief, we know love when we see it, child! Friendship, honour…it's not all the result of biology._'

Mikaela straightened a bit, offering a weak smile. "I didn't say that _I_ thought you'd punish him, Ratchet. Sam…wasn't exactly collected and calm at the time. You know about human medicine too, don't you Ratchet?"

Flummoxed by the sudden, sharp demand, Ratchet replied. _'Well, yes…I have studied many of the medical libraries of your world and have learned a great deal from your records and while of course theory is a very long way from practice, I've already begun adding several new tools to my kits which could be used to…'_

"So you can fix Sam, then," Mikaela sat back, crossing her arms as punctuation to the final words.

Momentarily at sea, Ratchet hazarded. "_Fix.._?'

"The Allspark is _killing_ him Ratchet!" Mikaela shouted, pounding an angry fist on the dashboard.

"_Ouch. Mikaela, I have no idea what Cube energy will do to Sam…_'

"Cut the bull," Mikaela pounded her fist against the dash again, her eyes squeezed tight shut. "My Mom had a heart condition, Ratchet, I know what blue fingertips means!"

'_Blue…what?'_

"Blue fingertips! The heart shuts down and your extremities start to lose oxygen, starting with fingers and toes. Royal blue, Ratchet, just like Sam's hands. Or what I could see around the stupid razor wire, so you can just fix that too!"

"_Wire…ah, to ground the shocks, very clever…Mikaela, reading facts out of a textbook is not going to turn me into a human expert!_'

"No, but you are an expert on the Cube and no human doctor would know anything about that, so you have to! You're it! Don't you understand? You're all we have! You're the only chance that I…Sam, that Sam has. So find a way!"

Ratchet may not be an expert on social subtlety, but even he could figure this one out. _'I can't wave my hands and put Sam back the way he was, child,_' Ratchet explained gently. '_I will find a way to help him…I promise you I will. But there's no guarantee you will be able to touch him or even get close to him, as you could before. Do you understand? I can't rewrite the laws of the universe, for a good reason or a bad one._' Ratchet thought about it some more. _'Now, are you going to stop whining like an inferior life form, or are you going to help me?'_

Shocked, Mikaela sat up straight. "Infe…Where do you get off, you glorified tin can!"

Ratchet revved in nervous defiance. _'Better a tin can than a...a...fluid leaking water bag who gives up at the first sign of trouble. Yes, inferior! Autobots don't need to touch or hold to tell others how they are esteemed, honoured and trusted above all else. Hah, only a creature run on unstable chemicals could believe that mere touch was all there was too it!_'

"You clunking rattletrap!" Mikaela snarled. "Don't you tell me how I love Sam. And don't you dare tell me I'm giving up on it, or I'll introduce you to the most sadistic panel beater in the entire northern hemisphere. That turn you on, you masochistic lemon?"

'_Better than being attracted to the stink of a sweaty armpit, you glob of miscellaneous chemicals!'_

"Hunk of Junk!"

'_Squishy vertebrate!'  
_"Outmoded wreck!'

'_Crazy, DNA shooting sex-fiend!_'

Mikaela burst out laughing. She laughed and laughed and laughed until her sides ached. "Se-se-sex field?" She got out between great guffaws.

Ratchet sniffed. '_World Wide Web, remember? Finding out Earths languages was matter of elimination – __**massive**__ elimination – of most of the sites. What is this fascination you have with procreation, anyway? It looked very messy to me, and I'm a doctor!'_

Mikaela wiped tears off her face, still chuckling. "Curiosity. And thanks, Ratchet. I feel…better."

Ratchet shifted gears, which Mikaela took to be an Autobot equivalent of shuffling the feet or clearing the throat. '_Yes, well, anyway. I don't have an answer for you yet. But I'm working on it!_'

"I know…you must have something, right? Maybe enough to let human doctors get close? I mean, Sam found a way to ground the shocks, sort of," she winced at the memory of the wrecked look on Sam's face. Then her resolved hardened. They would find him. If life won't hand you it then you snatch it from life, that's what her father always said. "Can't you guys ground the power somehow? Bumblebee touched the Cube and nothing happened to him, so you must have…Ratchet?"

Ratchet had nearly swerved off the road. '_Bumblebee! That's it! That's the answer!'_

"_Hey, guys!"_ Lennox's voice cut through the noise of inspiration. "_Check out the view at ten o' clock!_"

Ahead of them, trees wavered and disappeared from the skyline off the road, followed by flowers of fire in full boom, and a thump, not so much heard as felt that rattled windows, even this far away.

Someone had started a fight.

"Sam!"

--

Bumblebee was forced to slow, frustrated and worried, as he turned this way and that. It wasn't that he was lost, it was just that this planet's geography was sentient and clearly against him.

He'd lost the signal! It had been so _clear_ not so long go but now his readings were scattered and all over the place. It was like Sam had gone in several directions all at once.

Bumblebee was worried about his human. And Sam was his human, he didn't doubt that for a second. Somehow they clicked together, forming a perpetual motion machine that defied the laws of physics, somehow making a greater result than the sum of the parts. It had never occurred to Bumblebee before that an upgrade could be something more than a new gun, or a new system, a new transformation. Somehow, without changing a single component, Sam made him a better fighter. And in return, Bumblebee did the same for Sam. Both of them when went places the other couldn't go, accomplished things the other couldn't do, but by combining the two ends of the spectrum they could cover everything, fight anyone, triumph at anything.

It was as brand spanking new a thought as a newly minted bolt, but one Bumblebee would fight to the death to hang on to. Optimus thought the humans would be useful allies, but Bumblebee had a feeling it would go much deeper than that. It had taken them a week with humans what generations of Autobots over the centuries failed to do – defeat Megatron. And that was just the start.

Slag, Bumblebee cursed, stretching out with his sensors. He needed to find his partner and friend. Sam was in trouble, so Bumblebee needed to be there. It was just that simple. The idea that the risk was not worth the effort, given his recent injury, was so utterly dumb that Bumblebee wouldn't even consider it.

Hmmm…that was interesting…maybe scattered was the wrong word for the signals he was getting. 'Radiated' was the word. Subtle tangs of magnetic and electrical forces were pinging against his systems, all being bent in tiny, miniscule ways and patterns, a microcosmic tapestry that Bumblebee has only just realised he'd started to drive on.

Radiating _in_, not out, Bumblebee realized in shock. Occasionally, the magnetic forces would surge back to normal like a wave hitting the beach, but then turn again.

Toward the epicentre.

Towards Sam.

--

Figg was having an argument with his pilot (not for those of a long life, or so the Air Force joke went). "Look you crazy _gringo_ I don't give a shit what search pattern the command staff wants us to make, I'm telling you, _go that way_. Consider it an order, why don't you?"

"And how exactly do you know? Magic eight ball?" The pilot sneered, still taking commands from his headset.

"Special intelligence. You did notice the Sergeant's stripes, right Corporal? Move out!" Figg snapped.

And it was special intelligence too. His mama, she had the sight. And so did he. People always laughed at him, but didn't they always?

When he breathed in, he could feel that pulse in his chest against. Up here, in the air, the tiny disturbances in the electrical fields were finding a home in the static filled radios, the flickering equipment…and in a mind that was trained to receive. His brain had turned into a three pound compass, and the needle was pointing Figg in the right direction.

The choppers all folded in, one after the other, following the leader, very shortly after that, following the explosions in the distance that lit up the horizon.

--

"Starscream," Barricade nodded to the newly arrived Decepticon insolently.

Starscream transformed mid-air, hit the ground with a log splitting crack, and approached the other mech in a rage. "What do you _want_ Barricade? I have a mission! You are interfering!"

"Touchy, touchy," Barricade didn't move from his mock casual slouch against one of the trees, which canted creakily under his weight. "Wouldn't it be so much better if we completed it together, Starscream? After all, one and a bit heads are slightly better than one."

Starscream almost lunged at the other Decepticon but managed to restrain himself. That was just Barricade in action. Skilled at interrogation, espionage, and intelligence gathering. Also skilled at defying Starscream's leadership, creatively disobeying orders and cranking and cranking and cranking Starscream until he was wound like a spring. He'd always been a cheerfully venomous voice of dissent at Starscream's helm.

"This is a very _special_ mission, Barricade, given to me by Megatron himself," Starscream loomed over Barricade as best he could. "Our Lord is very particular about whom he chooses for his missions – and to handle his command. But I'm sure I don't need to tell you that, now do I?"

Barricade was silent for a moment, and Starscream silently rejoiced. Hah! Shove that up your tailpipe! Barricade never liked playing second fiddle to Starscream when Starscream had been left in charge. Barricade shifted his shoulder plates. "Of course," he said equitably. Then he took a sharp step sideways and saluted. "As you say, commander."

The trunk, bent under incredible stress, snapped back in the other direction, branches whooshing through the air and they came around like a fly swat. One branch, swinging down, caught Starscream a blow right on top of his head, nearly nailing it into it's cavity like a tent peg. He staggered and wove, letting out an impotent roar of fury. "_Barricade!_"

"Whoops, sorry. I didn't know it was going to do that," Barricade feigned innocence not even a sparkling would believe.

Starscream managed to get himself sorted, ready to commit murder. His guns were already creeping into view. But he couldn't, he _couldn't_, he was so close now. "Rest assured Megatron will know of your insolence, Barricade, and your fate will be a cautionary tale for generations of Decepticons to come!"

"Stop raving, you stupid glitch head," Barricade snorted. "I can see how a miniscule processor such as yourself missed it, but it's over! The Allspark is gone. There will be no others after us."

"Ha! Shows what you know, Barricade! If my mission is successful, I will gladly help you eat your words!" Starscream crowed. "That is, if Megatron decides to spare you, which I doubt."

Barricade's red optics narrowed. He remembered the puny human insect with the traces of Allspark energy clinging to him. "Your meaning is then that the Allspark still exists?"

Slag, Starscream cursed. His vocal processor must have a virus or something. Or maybe it was just Barricade, cranking his handles again, that made him want to defeat him utterly, prove him wrong at every turn.

"That is not your concern, Barricade!" Starscream bellowed. "Now, if you've satisfied your security protocols _and_ your death wish, I will be getting on with my mission."

"What are you hiding, you slimy oil stain?"

"Nothing _you _need to know," Starscream hissed. He kicked at a branch, hoping optimistically it would catch Barricade in the face in a small piece of payback for earlier.

Of course, it missed entirely. But it did leave in impressive web of cracks in the windscreen of the SUV that had, up until now, been well hidden in the shadows.

The Decepticons stared.

The humans stared right back.

Miles poked his head out of the window. "Er…I don't suppose you know the way to Holbrooks Road from here?" he yelled up to the two inquiringly. Then he turned his head inside the car. "What? It might work."

Epps gunned it in reverse, tyres kicking dust and dirt as they fled the scene.

"Get them!" Starscream bellowed to Barricade.

Barricade stared at him. "Why? _They_ don't have the Allspark."

Starscream let out a roar of rage. "They will bring the Autobots!" He opened fire.

The trees took the brunt of the first shot. And the second. Ash and fire rained and molten earth spat.

But the third…

…the car took the brunt of the third, white fire climbing into the sky like a beacon.

--

Sam was no longer aware of anything. Like a blanket slowly draped and wrapped, his external senses had dimmed and all but vanished, leaving him with breath, and light and heat.

In his head, the universe became a song, full of wondrous chords and melodies. The music…it was the most beautiful thing there was. It was everything. Past, present, and future. It was alive, and also the beat which life danced to. It was That Which Is.

That was the only way he could describe it, when he was still in a position to remember it. It was That Which Is.

He didn't have any memories left, not like he'd had when he'd been human and alive. Everything was just the Song. He knew his notes and others notes only vaguely, because it was only the melodies in an all encompassing whole. But as he opened wide and sang to the universe, voiceless, soundless and profound, deep within the empty shell of Jazz there came an echo. The song bounced around the hollows, ringing in the empty chambers, and somehow, the echo bounced back, stronger than the whisper that had birthed it.

It echoed up through Sam, and went higher, and higher, out into the universe, like a new instrument that was not gone, never gone, but hidden, invisible, under the rest of the Song, waiting, hoping, stretching, striving. There were so many of them, more than there were numbers for, and finding one in all of them should have been impossible.

Is wasn't. Impossible was an absurd notion. There was no other like it in the entire history or future of the universe. To not recognise that silent chord was like not recognising the sun, the sky. It flowed out of that hollow shell, filled to bursting, slotting back into the Song like it had never left.

Sam never saw it, he couldn't see anything past the white glow all around.

Jazz's finger digits had started to twitch.

--


	8. Chapter Seven: Raise The Stakes

Disclaimer: Transformers is the property of Hasbro and whoever gets the money. The movie belongs to Paramount and M. Bay and whoever gets the money. The author isn't the one who gets the money, for this work is non profit and for fun only.

Warnings: Mild coarse language, adult and supernatural themes, some violence

Authors Notes: Did you know, that for two and half months, all I had of this chapter was about six sentences? It sucked! But finally, I locked myself and my laptop in my room and said, I'm going to get this done or so help me, I'll die trying. Wahooo, got past my writer block again! It always hits me about three quarters of the way through, it's just terrible. But persevere I shall, come hell or high water, though it's helps if people are willing to wait – this is me smiling very sheepishly…thanks guys, for waiting, and to all your wonderful reviews. When I look at them, I am constantly amazed at how much you like this dalliance of mine. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I make you wait far too long to deserve it.

I hope you enjoy this, and one more chapter (plus maybe an epilogue) to go! My laptop stays up here away from distractions until it's done, too!

Please, read and review. And enjoy, of course!

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Chapter Seven – Raise the Stakes

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"_Bail OUT!"_

Miles remembered the words, they echoed around his aching skull and were unable to escape again through his ringing ears. He stumbled, disoriented in the dark and hedged in my trees on all sides. Behind him, the world glowed like the forges of Hell.

Miles could barely think past the white noise in his head. He couldn't get a grip on his thoughts – he didn't know he needed to. He wandered, a passive passenger in a human skin, unable to hear the roar of the fire of the crack of falling trees. He felt as if he was walking behind himself, at a long distance and watching with disinterest.

A mournful creaking sound managed to break through the ringing. Whatever it was, it must be loud to break though that terrible bell next to his ear. Turning dull eyes to the trees, he was surprised to see one move towards him.

His legs, reacting to orders from the survival lobe, thrust him out of the way of the three tonne hammer of lumber. It was almost dignified as it swept slowly downwards, peaceful and almost silent, and then the groans of stress and the ear splitting pops of snapping limbs rang out, sounding worse than a war. Miles was swatted in the back by the outer edges of a large, bushy branch, bruising his back and poking him on all sides with the sharp remains of newly broken twigs. Gasping and suddenly awake from adrenaline, Miles squirmed of prickly cage and out into the smoky night.

Smoky was right – Hell probably looked like the clearing did now, trees were cracking and popping as they burned where they stood. Some of them were just stumps, the entirety of the old trees sheared off as neatly as a buzz saw. Some were burning logs laying on the ground or across other trees, some were just gone – ash, blowing across the ground. Miles knew these forests pretty well, but now they were practically another planet.

The SUV was gone – it wasn't even recognisable as a car anymore. There was a melted pool of metal, casting a hellish cherry red glow – the tree they'd backed to in a wild escape attempt was a pile of dust being blown by the wind. An entire swathe of trees, leading in a straight line from the remains of the car to the clearing they'd escaped from were simply gone, vaporized or knocked outwards like a crop circle.

Miles, drunk on adrenaline and terror, cheered up a bit. He'd always maintained to Sam that crop circles were alien made. Ha! Sam owed him five bucks.

It was hard to make out the mech stalking toward him - the smoke from the fires was like a thick fog now – but there he came, like Jack the Ripper, only with less knives and more badassness and twenty feet tall.

Miles froze. There was no cover here, no way even he could run fast enough to get out of the way of that dreadful cannon, not with a twenty yard wide line of trees blown into non existence.

"You absolute rat bastard! I'm gonna shove this up yer tailpipe and make your insides sing Waltzing Matilda, you clapped out rust bucket!"

Miles spun to see Maggie, standing there like a low-budget war goddess just in front of the red puddle of the SUV, screaming her knock kneed defiance at the evil colossus that was Starscream. She had her stiletto's gleaming in the red light like armour spikes, her hair in wild disarray, blood running down her face and _her hands still gripping the rocket gun_.

The first shot landed, purely by chance. The recoil knocked her back almost to her fiery death in the wreck, and she learned that having a car to brace this .105 sable round gun was far different than using your own body as a stanchion.

One shot was all that Miles needed. He sprinted towards Starscream as the unexpected blow of the round made his shot a wild miss, punching a burning crater in the forest to the side. Miles stretched his stride to the point where he could feel his tendons strum like a guitar string, praying to be just fast enough.

Before Starscream could right himself from the stagger, Miles had ducked between his legs and, thank you, thank you, his attention was now fully focused on Maggie. Miles couldn't get this demon behind him, so he got behind the demon instead. Lungs burning from smoke, Miles desperately tried not to cough.

But now the monster was aiming at Maggie, who was still picking herself up from being blown onto her back. Miles had an agonizing moment of helplessness. When this thing shot her, there wouldn't even be ashes. If this had been a fight amongst bullies, Miles would have leapt on one of their backs – an unscientific but highly effective means of slowing them down. There was no way he could slow down something like Starscream.

Or maybe…no, it was absolutely _insane_.

_Well_, another part of him argued cheerfully, concussed and unafraid, _the world's gone pretty insane in the last hour. Technically you are dead already – no human could possibly survive against these things alone and unarmed. So you might as well try insane – if you act rationally, you'll still end up just as dead._

Miles viewed one of the minutely shifting pillars of leg, and tried desperately to remember everything he knew about free hand climbing.

-------------------------------------------

Bumblebee followed the magnetic pull of the Allspark. He could literally feel it now; he could have felt this in his sleep. Underneath him, the earth itself turned towards the pull it. It wasn't just the earth, either.

All around him, birds swarmed in the sky – thousands upon thousands of them, flocking in the night, chattering and squalling, every species you could name. Bumblebee was forced to move more carefully through the forest creatures as animals, great and small, lumbered, hopped, trotted, slithered, buzzed and scurried towards the epicentre. It frustrated him, but it wasn't in him to drive over any living thing, not just because they were small and slow and he was big and in a hurry. What kind of reason was that? The Decepticons used reasons like that.

So what was at one point a headlong dash was now a careful crawl through trees, gently scattering anything in the way and going at a pace a human could match just by walking. A human, ha, they could get through this without a blink, they were small and agile and could manoeuvre on a whim. That's what we need them for!

And Bumblebee knew the Autobots needed humans now. There would be no more Cybertrons, no more younglings. They needed humans, who were frail and short-lived, who used that frailty to make themselves smarter and faster and better. Humans who didn't calculate odds to make every decision – they just went for it, and consistently triumphed in the face of all logic that consistently baffled the dearly held methodical thought processes of the 'Bots. Their bodies and minds both could go places the 'Bots could not go, just as the mech's minds and bodies could do things no human could dream of doing. Brought together, they were a greater sum than the parts which was an insane point of view for a machine mind, but then that was a human thing too.

The birds swirling in the sky and blotting out the sun would have been amazing if it hadn't been for the – urg, yuck – white rain they bought with him. When this was all over, he hoped he could convince Sam to wash him with the friendly back yard hose rather than that car wash place. That machine was a pervert.

The ground which had been once alive with living things, stopped moving. The trees were thick with birds, squirrels and rats, branches were bent under the weight. On the ground, huge groups of various woodland folk seethed fidgeted on the ground, stopped dead in a clearly defined borderline. They had come here, but would go no closer.

Bee eased his way past and continued on, surreptitiously trying to scrape some of the mess off himself.

He sidled around a thick stand of trees and into a clearing where he saw a memory-box and _Sam_.

Bumblebee was across the clearing in an instant, shedding his vehicle mode and ending up crouched down next to Sam, leaning his massive form as close to Sam was he could get. Primus, he never realised how small and young and frail Sam was…slag it! But that's how he looked. Tiny. Shut down. _Broken_.

"_SSSaaaam?"_ Bumblebee forced the name out past his slagging malfunctioning voice modulator. It was painful, but Bee didn't notice. He didn't notice, because looking at Sam's fragile human body with the bruised blue fingers and toes, with the cracked lips and the red, tear stained cheeks _really, really hurt_. It was pain like he had never experienced before.

And Primus, what the _hell_ did he know about human anatomy? _Anything_ he did could snuff Sam out like a tiny flame, and Bumblebee couldn't stand that. Where was Ratchet when you needed him? Slag it!

Gently and with exquisite care Bumblebee used his smallest laser cutter, the one he only ever used on his most delicate projects, to slice through the shackles holding Sam to the flat metal bed. That he knew how to do. Now he needed to find a way to get Sam into him and he could burn rubber to Ratchet, or one of those human infirmary buildings… hospitals, right. Or maybe he could just carry Sam? The government officers had been very clear about things like confidentiality and exposure to the public, but that was so much bent screws right now, because Sam needed him.

The boy's lips were moving. Bending down almost comically, Bumblebee strained to pick something, anything, from the sounds. By Primus, his eyes were even opening. Yes! Score one for the Sam & Bee team.

"…_elp…him…help…c'ln't st…hel'…'az_"

Help him? Help who?

Bumblebee looked up when he felt the looming presence. Shock hit him like a cannon blast.

Incidentally, so did a sputtering blast from Jazz's cannons, which knocked him back over Sam and sent him sprawling across the clearing. He sat up, seared and not a little bit poleaxed, as his dead friend raised a cannon to shoot again.

This was real life! This wasn't _Orn of the Living Dead_! Things like this did not happen!

Jazz's swerving, drunken steps faltered too close to Sam, and Bumblebee leapt into the fray, desperate, bewildered but determined.

But this was a battle Bee couldn't win.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Epps crouched low in the shadows of the forest, the trunk of the tree rough against his back. The damn police car was slowly scouring the trees with it's lights, creeping through the shadows and smoke, looking for targets. Stealth wasn't the most effective offensive Epps could think of, but right now he had a nine millimetre handgun that was about as much use as an arcade rifle against one of these things. He wished he had his specially made sable round handheld with him, but it had vanished along with the SUV, the kid and Maggie, and God he hoped Maggie was okay. Epps had done what his training had ingrained, he'd headed for cover and reconnoitred before trying to circle back. For the rest of his life, he'd remember about the projectile of light, making trees vanish right in front of the windshield while they back pedalled for their lives.

And now the enemy was almost on top of them. The muted growl of the sinister engine was close now, and Epps shifted carefully, setting himself up for the next step.

Closer…the forest all around lit up under the Decepticon's headlights, but Epps had tucked himself against the bulk of a massive old tree, which could shadow his form nicely. Closer still…the individual revs of the motor became crystal clear, he could smell the engine running. There was an ominous whining, buzzing sound ringing out as weapons were primed.

Epps exploded out from him cover, rolling and coming up, firing smoothly as the enemy came into view. Little white spats began to appear on the windshield as the armour piercing bullets skipped off the alien compound like pebbles. He got off four rounds only before Barricade shot back, a small energy cannon snapping off rounds from under the front bumper, forcing Epps to dive for cover. The only reason the strategy had worked so far was that in close quarters, the alien mechs had absolutely zero mobility. Another energy shot toppled the tree Epps used for cover, and he spun to fire at the windshield again.

Barricade made a revving sound, almost like a chuckle. He didn't notice Glen sneaking up behind him, and chucking what looked like a laptop mated with one of the battery packs through the gaping hole in his back window. Epps grinned, turned and ran for it.

There was a pop and a flash from the innards of the metal beast, and Barricade screeched as hot laptop shrapnel bounced and punched his insides. Firing wildly in every direction he could manage, Barricade careered backwards, transforming to mech mode to retreat quicker.

Epps circled around as fast as he could go, looking for the tech who had Macgyvered that very impressive one-shot bomb from the remains of the equipment blown out of the SUV when it crashed. Glen was huddled in a shallow ditch not too far away, his hands pressed tight over his ears. "Come on, man, we gotta go," Epps hauled a stocky tech up by one shoulder.

"I am _never_ doing that again!" Glen declared shakily, brushing himself off.

Epps grinned at him. "You did good. Relax. The hard part's over." Well, this hard part was over anyway. Epps saw nothing to be gained in reminding the civilian that there was still another one to deal with yet.

Or not…Epps made a sharp cutting motion with his hands as rustling came from nearby. Shit! If the damn car had come back for another round, they didn't have anything else! Epps raised his gun anyway, and sidled towards the noise. There was no way he could run because Glen couldn't keep up, and no man gets left behind.

Stiffening his stance and keeping his arms straight and steady, Epps prepared to face their assailant again, while the tech huddled against a tree, too far out of his depth to help. One sharp turned and he rolled out into the clear, finger itchy on the trigger.

Will raised his hands. "If this is about that poker night, you know I'm good for what I owe you."

"Jesus, Captain!" Epps cussed, hastily jerking his weapon to a safer angle. He glared at his superior even as he relaxed. "With respect, sir, you are so freaking not funny, sir."

"Noted, sergeant. How've you been?"

Epps sighed, and gave up. He nearly shot his superior officer and good friend. Was it too much to ask that the man act even a little insulted about it? "I've had better nights. Come on, the other one is still out there," he turned and jogged towards the inferno, snagging Glen by the shoulder as he went past.

"The kid you rescued," Lennox kept pace with him. "Where is he?"

"Lost track of the civilians, sir," Epps replied stonily, because dammit, their protection was his job. "I think they all managed to bail out before the hostile totalled our car. I located one," he jerked his head towards Glen, who huffed and puffed several yards back. "And we had to engage one of the unfriendlies or die. But the others..." he bit down on the rest of it.

Lennox looked sideways at him. "We'll find them."

"Yes, sir."

"We'll _find_ them, Epps. You did what you could under lousy circumstances. We'll find them, and when we do…"

He dropped to the ground and Epps dropped with him on instinct, both of them reaching up as Glen steamed past and yanking him down too. A plasma shot sizzled overhead, and blew against Barricade who had crept through the trees to ambush them, his now one good eye burning with hatred. Had they been working properly, he might have noticed Ironhide step from the swirling smoke with his cannons primed and a murderous expression. Both shots stuck the hapless Decepticon, sending him spinning back into the gloom, toppling trees in his wake.

"Slagging, back stabbing rust bucket," Ironhide snarled. "Do not turn your back on the likes of him, Sergeant. He'll always find a way to strike back at you when you don't watch him."

"No problem, big guy," Epps replied, and added fervently. "Good to see you."

"Very, very, very good. Enormously, very good," Glen chorused as best he could with his face flattened into the ground.

Ironhide gave a rumbling growl, and transformed. "_Come. The others may require our assistance._"

"I hope not," Glen groaned and he heaved himself into the back seat. "I am just technical support, everyone knows that, right?"

-------------------------------------------------

Maggie gripped her borrowed weapon, and tried to stand her ground before Starscream, who was exactly the way she'd always thought monsters would look. God, what was that kid _doing_? She could see him, a tiny figure, clambering unnoticed up the monsters leg.

One shake and he's in oblivion, thought Maggie. She'd only threatened the hostile alien because she'd wanted Miles to get away and she had had nowhere to run. Now she couldn't even fire on the hostile robot, because insofar as you could aim this terrible, evil, keg sized gun, Maggie was no marksman. She'd never handled a gun in her life. She'd been raised in Katoomba, Australia for Christ's sake, a hanky sized but civilized little city – not a farm out in the Never Never!

"Don't move, or I'll fire again!" Maggie yelled, but even as she said it she knew it would do no good. It's not like this little thing could land a fatal shot all in one go, not on the Decepticon. Worse, the Decepticon could.

Starscream was twisting and turning like a man trying to scratch that area of back that can't be reached, and she realised the kid must be making trouble for him. She primed the weapon because she didn't have anything else to do, trembling and shaken, because if Starscream turned at the wrong moment she would kill Miles, even if the actual round went nowhere near him. The shockwave would be enough. She raised it…

Starscream jumped and danced, roaring as shots landed on him from two directions. Astonished, Maggie turned to see Optimus Prime and the medic Ratchet emerge from the trees, guns blazing.

"Excuse me, please," Simmons popped up by her side, making her yelp as his approach was entirely unnoticed in the noise and chaos. He yanked the sable gun from her hands. "Burn, sucker, burn," he hissed, and fired off two amazingly accurate rounds to add to the 'bots assault.

"Waitwaitwait, don't shoot, don't shoot!" Maggie screamed out, launching herself towards the gun and trying to yank it back. Ouch, it was bloody hot!

"Maggie?" Mikaela sprinted out of the trees. "Are you okay? What…"

"Don't shoot!" Maggie yelled. "Miles, the kid, he's on that thing's back! Don't shoot!"

Mikaela's expression transformed to one of horror, and she grabbed the communicator Ratchet had forced on her when she rode in his cab on the way here. "Optimus, stop! Sam's friend is on his back, you'll hit him too!"

Optimus yanked back his guns and Ratchet did the same. Simmons still wrestled for the sable gun with Maggie. "We can't let it escape. It's hostile! Open fire, dammit!"

Mikaela reached in and joined in the tug of war for the gun. "We are not shooting Miles just to kill Starscream, okay? We're not shooting anyone or anything until we find Sam okay? If you don't like it, you jackass, then we can start with shooting you!" Mikaela yanked the gun out of the agents grip. "_Okay_?"

Far away, Starscream was still clawing and dancing, trying to get at the human flea now wreaking havoc on his back.

"Ha! I think the boy has started yanking coolant wires. Good for him!" Ratchet peered through his long lenses at the dancing, jerking Decepticon.

"Ratchet, go around the side. I'll get his attention and see if I can distract him long enough for you to get the boy off of him and away."

"Hmm, possible. We must be careful not to let him transform. Depending on where exactly the boy is at the time he might get crushed to death. Or, alternatively, he might get subspaced."

"Can he survive that?" Optimus asked grimly.

"Oh yes. For brief periods only, of course. The Decepticons like using lots of subspace more than making their folds elegant. It's quicker. But like I said, it would all be down to actual position."

"Roll out," Optimus ordered. He looked down at the humans. "Stay here, wait for Ironside. Don't get close." He strode off towards the Decepticon. Ratchet peeled off into the burning trees.

Maggie started to cough as she abruptly realized how much smoke and fire were around her. "Hadn't we better get somewhere the fire isn't?"

Mikaela dug around in her pockets and pulled out some spare gauze. She'd packed her pockets with stuff from the medics who had taken her dad, knowing Sam might be in the same state. "Right now, that's pretty much everywhere," she tried for a smile. Maggie was looking smaller and greyer now that the weapon was gone from her hands. Mikaela knew how frightening it could be, standing your ground against these things. Good for her, Mikaela thought. Good for her. She dabbed away the blood from the gash on the tech's forehead.

"Thanks, mate," Maggie said gratefully, accepting the gauze. She was dropping into Aussie-isms out of pure adrenaline burn out.

Simmons, meanwhile, watched the Decepticon like a hawk, his hands still on the gun. Suddenly he cursed under his breath and fired rounds until the gun was empty, shocking the two women standing next to him.

"What the hell do you think you're…!" Maggie started.

"Oh my God," Mikaela cried, and pointed. Starscream did his usual flip and turn, and transformed with Miles still on his back. The boy vanished underneath the shifting metal. Starscream shot forwards, ramming Optimus hard and knocking him backwards before spinning and fleeing.

"_Miles_!" Mikaela screamed. "_Optimus_!"

----------------------------------------------

"Stop, stop, stop, stop!" Figg circled his hand. "Go around, see if you can't find a gap."

"Sorry sir, they're flocking too thick," The birds were nothing more than black shapes and off silvery reflections, darting like silver fish in the sky, under the waning moonlight. The pilot shot an incredulous look at the gunner. "I ain't never seen anything like this! What the hell are they doing?"

"Same thing we are, amigo," Figg shook his head. "I got targets in the clearing, can you get anything on infrared?"

"Yes sir," the pilot replied. "Two big bastards. They look like their fighting each other. Permission to engage, sir?"

"We can't get close enough to engage," Figg waved a hand at the flocks of birds swarming the sky. "Keep circling. Tell B and C squadron to see of they can't find somewhere to land, and go in on foot. The rest of us, keep your eyes peeled, see if you can identify which one is the unfriendly."

"They both look grey coloured to me, sir," the pilot yelled over the downdraft. "Although one of them looks like he's got a piss poor paint job."

"Keep watching. We'll get our moment. Call for back up, too, this is gonna be a hell of a mess." Out of the corner of his eye, Figg spotted movement. "Santa Maria! Pull up, pull up!" Frantically, the chopper dove and leapt out of the way of the screaming, dented jet that slalomed into the air beside them and ploughed right through.

------------------------------------------------

Bee scythed Jazz's legs out from under him, slicing towards his chest with a small wrist blade. He was loathe to use his cannon anywhere the shots could hit Sam. Jazz kicked him off his a stunning blow, rolling up and spinning furiously cutting and clawing and slicing the air, his blows quick and repetitive.

Bee went rolling across the clearing. Jazz shuddered and almost powered down, but then jerked up again. This happened once every few minutes. He fought in furious, silent, repetitive burst, then he would waver, withdraw. Then there would be that horrible kick in his movements, and he would be coming again, fast and deadly and silent. That was the worst thing, if there was a worst in all the worsts. When he shuddered and nearly shut down there would be this little swagger in his steps, his movement would become more open and less straight and sharp – he would become Jazz, more or less. But then he would give that little jerk and after that all he was, was a morbid little puppet, an unthinking machine simply reacting to his surroundings – without feeling or even awareness. Bee was so confused by this, he could not figure out what had happened or how. He could have stuck a killing blow several times in the last five minutes, when that little Jazz swagger came back, and the other mech stumbled and faltered and looked around distracted. But that was when Jazz was still so heart wrenchingly Jazz, and the wound of his death was still so fresh and bleeding, Bee couldn't make it any deeper by striking down his friend. Jazz hadn't said a word yet. Neither had Bee – there was no sound byte he could think to use that would be enough. _How? Why? I miss you. I love you. You were my brother. I'm sorry I got you killed_.

Sam just managed to turn his head and look towards the Evil Box. A tiny tube like thing had extended from it, and blinked on and off at regular intervals – it was a composer, conducting the fight. When the little light was on, the crashes got louder, sharper, more violent. When it was off, there was not sound at all except for moving, stumbling footfalls. Megatron. You had to admire him, even when he was down, he still found ways to kick. The minute Jazz was on his feet, that horrible baton had risen in that evil hand. And Sam was too far gone to do anything but watch while Jazz jerked and shuddered, jerked and shuddered as Megatron fought for control of him.

The pain was so bad now it wasn't even like pain at all. It was all boiling heat and arctic cold and roiling and twitching in the muscles. Sam gasped in air, and tried to force himself to rise. He didn't know how he'd gotten loose from the shackles, and he didn't know what was happening round him – his mind ad been through too much for that. Only one law remained, stamped into the iron of his mind, pouring steel into his blood.

Megatron. Must. Die.

---------------------------------


	9. Chapter Nine: Win The Day

Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro, Paramount and various others who make the money. This fiction belongs to the author, who does it for free.

Warnings: Violence, intense situations, some bad language

Authors Note: Uh…no, I'm not dead, though it would have been hard to tell, wouldn't it? Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry to all those who waited with far more patience than I would have shown. I had an absolute dry spell. I got a new laptop before I could start again. I nearly didn't finish this before the sequel came out here! That is just saaaaad!

Good News: only the epilogue to go.

If I have any readers left, thanks for your patience! Please read and review, and enjoy, and forgive, please, please!

Oh, and a note of thanks to Angharad23, who pointed out that it should have been 'sabot' not 'sable'. That was a really, really dumb mistake. Thanks mate!

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Chapter Eight: Win the Day

--------------------------------------

_Break it down, Sam. Break it down into parts._

So, _first_ he had to remind his body that it could and had to move. That was kind of like climbing Everest – every muscle twitch was agony, and he was going up hill against all parts of his body and mind, which were casting unanimous votes to stay where he was.

_Second_, he had to think about where he had to go. That was difficult, because he still had to maintain the 'let's keep moving' battle with his body at the same time.

_Third, _he had to connect the two together to a cohesive operating system. That proved to be his undoing – he could manage the first and the second separately, and even for short spurts have both ideas in his mind, but getting them to run together side by side?

The ground beneath his feet shuddered and he bounced with it. Bee and Jazz were fighting. Bee was _here_. Oh God, _Bee was here_!

Sam actually managed to roll off the slab on that thought alone. Off his back and onto his stomach, off that awful stove top and on the honest dirt. Surprisingly, that alone made him feel a little better.

He looked up and saw the blurs swing in and out of his dazed sight line, tussling and pounding as only two multi-tonne machines can do. His vision was so greyed out that he couldn't even tell which was which as they rolled and crashed around the clearing.

_Bee was one of them!_ Sam couldn't see him clearly, but he knew that Bumblebee was there. He felt it like plants feel the rain.

The relief, cool and soothing, flooded his system; it overflowed from his eyes. Face pressed into the dirt he heaved and panted his relief. The terrible, burnt edged hollow inside him was filled by it – it bubbled and sparked and revealed a reserve of strength buried deep in the strata of his soul.

Gritting his teeth, he clenched his hands into the sandy dirt, leaving furrows. Focusing on each twitching muscle, letting the relief flow over the weakness and pain, Sam dragged himself forward.

One way or another, no matter the cost, the Decepticons would not win the day.

The white hot burning was starting again. With every last ounce of focus he could muster, Sam stretched his finger toward that evil, evil box.

---------------------------------------------------------

Mikaela's fist was a perfect arc into Simmon's jaw even before the wash of Starscream's engines had even faded.

"You _bas_-"

Even as Simmon's went down, his hand reached out, snagged her sleeve and pulled Mikaela down. She saw Maggie get pulled to the ground as well. Hot dry heat blasted overhead, and a shockwave rattled teeth an instant later. Clawing dirt out of her eyes, Mikaela turned to the other end of the clearing where Starscream had just escaped. Standing behind him and now there alone was Barricade – battered and half broken, he'd clearly seen better days – his cannon firing down on them. Optimus, wrenching upwards past the sizable dents Starscream's blow had earned him, shot Barricade up and away, the Decepticon transforming as he fell and screeching away as fast as his crippled body could go with no intention of coming back.

The whole act had taken about ten seconds.

"That's it," Maggie moaned from the ground. "That's bloody enough! No more bloody guns!"

Simmons levered himself off the ground. "Well if you're going to go and release state secrets to hackers about giant alien robots…"

Maggie glared at him. "Oh, don't you even start with me about that, mate. Glen saved our lives, and did more with that signal in twenty seconds that a room full of tech support did in days."

"And I just saved yours," Simmons probed the red splotch on his jaw. "Funny how life turns out, isn't it?"

"You killed Miles," Mikaela returned flatly. "He was still on Starscream's back. How could you fire? How could you damn well _fire_?"

"I fired on the hostile because you all didn't notice the second hostile creeping up to use the first as a shield when he fired on us!" Simmons threw up his hands. "What right have you to tell me how to run an op? How many have you run exactly, girlie? I didn't want to see the kid dead, but we'd have been of no help to him blasted into oblivion, either. His chances were slim, and that's no fault of mine. You want to find your lover-boy? Well so do I. We have to stay alive to do that!" Simmons clutched his jaw, wincing. "And by the way – two words. Charm. School!" He staggered off, pulling his cell phone out of his jacket pocket.

Mikaela glared at his suited back. Despite overwhelming odds against him because of his reptilian mind, Simmons had actually managed to make a valid point. However…

_However, he could have shot at the ground as a warning or a decoy. He could have shot past Starscream to hit Barricade, because he said he could see him coming. He didn't. He didn't care – we just blasted away at the easiest target._ Mikaela hunched her shoulders. Sam already thought he'd killed one friend – how was he going to take it realizing another had been taken instead?

"I'm sorry. I said I was sorry!" came Ratchet's voice from the other side of the clearing. He walked from the trees, bending them aside to make room for a Topkick growling behind him.

"_Sorry, you reject? Sorry?! You shot me!" _Ironhide howled angrily, ramming Ratchet in the legs like an angry toddler with a parent.

Maggie and Mikaela exchanged a look, shrugged, and headed that way, leaving Simmons yelling orders over his phone.

"Oh, well excuse me Mr Suave-in-Black, but it's awfully hard to see you at night. This forest was crawling with Decepticons, and I am a _medic_. I'm not at my best in the great outdoors." Ratchet looked out over the clearing. "Optimus! Are you alright?" He spotted his leader checking himself over from his sitting position on the ground.

"Fine, Ratchet, mostly just damaged pride," Optimus nodded to him. "And Ironhide?"

"_He shot me!_" the wounded Topkick roared, while his passengers tactfully disembarked, and headed towards the two women. "_The slagging junkpile shot me in the…_" Ironhide checked himself momentarily, and continued a little quieter. "_He shot me._"

"Everyone okay?" Lennox strode towards them, his face blank. It took Mikaela a moment to realize he was holding back a smile. Mikaela cast her eyes over Ironhide, and realized his back panel and bumper were crumpled like old paper, sparking and scarred with heat, and his back window was cracked.

"The kid, Miles," Maggie replied. "The poor kid, he was on that monster's back when he changed, Rob."

Epps sucked in a breath. "God damn."

They exchanged brief war stories while the Autobots went on in the background.

"_In the aft, Ironhide. Good grief, you're not some adolescent, you can say it._"

"_You shot Ironhide in the aft, Ratchet?"_

"_It's those human tail lights – they're red. From behind, it rather looks like a Decepticon's front. I admit perhaps I acted a bit hastily, but I got turned around in the trees, and it's not as if I could make out his shape in the dark. Black - of all colours, Ironhide…"_

"_Excuse me? Optimus, you may accuse me of overusing my cannons, but at least I _check_ the low-scope identity frequencies before I fire on anyone! You shot me, you slagheap! You shot me with a _projectile! _My own comrade shot a burning lump of metal up my tailpipe! It's still in there, you sorry excuse for a soldier!"_

"_Well if you would just transform, I could do the necessary repairs!"_

"_Oh yes? Transform and have my internals hanging out for all to see? I don't think so!"_

"_Ironhide, my friend, let's be honest, we wouldn't be seeing anything we hadn't before. As your leader, I can't let you go into battle wounded."_

"_Absolutely not! What about the humans?"_

"_What about them? They wouldn't know what they were looking at. Or, they wouldn't if you'd just stop yelling."_

"_The girl would! Besides, I wouldn't trust Ratchet with this! He's the one who put it there in the first place!"_

"_I said I was sorry! And I'll have you know I'm a darn fine medic, even if I am a bit…less skilled with a gun!"_

"For Christ's sake, no one crack a smile," Lennox advised through clenched teeth as his face muscles twitched spasmodically. "In this mood, Ironhide would probably run us over."

"Who's smiling?" Glen hissed back, while the others spluttered vainly. "We were in Ironhide when Ratchet shot him. I wouldn't want him near me either!"

Simmons came running up, panting. "We have to go, right now. Sec Def has sent troops to engage mech's battling a few miles from here. The satellite indicates the hostile jet…"

"Starscream," Mikaela rolled her eyes.

"…who escaped is heading that way too. They can't get close enough to see which alien is which though."

"Bumblebee!" Ratchet threw up his hands. "I'm going to disable him when I get my hands on him!"

"_Ha!_" Ironhide grunted.

"Let's go. Simmon's, please let your people know that the boy, Miles, will probably be in the thick of it," Optimus commanded.

"Sam will probably be there too," Ratchet advised. "If Bumblebee is there, then Sam is most likely in the vicinity."

"Miles is alive?" Mikaela burst out, relief bubbling inside her. "Are you sure?"

Ratchet sniffed the air. "If he'd been crushed in the folds, there'd be blood everywhere. There's not a drop anywhere here, except what's on you all." He transformed, following Optimus's lead. "_Mikaela, you come with me. I need your help with something._"

-------------------------------------------------------------

_cold, dark, cold, air, need air, what's air, move, move what, cold, dark, air, dark, can't move, cold, dark, dark, air, need air, cold, cold, hurts, air, need air, air, air air airairAIR…_

Miles gasped as air was suddenly available, filling his starved lungs and making him dizzy. Disorientated, the stars wheeled overhead as he tried to get his bearings, and only just had enough time to realize he was flipping end over end in the air before striking something hard – thankfully whatever it was moved with him, otherwise he would have broken every bone in his body.

Bumblebee was forced to brake and slide awkwardly when Starscream blasted into the clearing, landing half transformed in front of him, between him and Jazz. He skidded on the loose dirt, leaving great furrows and he desperately tried to redirect his forward lunge towards Jazz before he slammed into Starscream from behind. Not that he would have minded body checking the mech, it was just that it would put him in a bad position should Starscream want to retaliate.

To Bumblebee's astonishment, as Starscream reformed something – a _human_? – came flying out from his un-subspacing back folds, flipping out and away like doll.

It wasn't even thought – sheer instinct made Bumblebee pivot on one lowest leg joint and go into a full dive towards the flying human, stretching out his hands and far as they could reach, curving them around the frail human body and the arc of his fall came down, landing with a graceless belly flop and a thump, but the human safely captured in his outstretched hands.

Miles opened his eyes and yelped at the enormous, blue eyed metal face peering down at him, looking just as shocked as Miles felt. Adrenaline gave his thoughts fire as he looked at the mech, whose bright yellow colouring was still visible through a speckling of bird guano. Connections were made lightning fast in his jazzed up mind. "Are you the damn Camaro?"

Bumblebee had enough wherewithal to roll as Starscream turned to fire on him. Behind Starscream and beyond Jazz, white arcs of light spun and danced around the crawling Sam as he headed towards the memory box, zapping it with as much power as he could focus, which still left plenty to spare.

"Sam?" Miles whispered as Bumblebee's change of position gave him a view of his bud, looking half dead and terrified and very, very angry – surrounded by lashing white bolts.

Bumblebee fired wildly, reaming Starscream with as many shots as be could fired with one hand cannon, keeping Miles cupped in the other hand while he shot half over his shoulder – forcing the Decepticon to retreat back and away. Unfortunately, that made him head towards Sam, though he didn't seem to notice the boy yet. The presence of Jazz distracted him and gave him pause as he warily looked from one Autobot to the other.

Bumblebee gently put Miles on the ground. "_Run away! I protect!_" he forced out through his damaged voice capacitor, making a slight shooing motion. He spun and charged Starscream, dragging him down into a tackle and pummeling him hard, not giving the Decepticon time to think or act. There were too many humans, and too many other living things all around to start using cannons to fight. Bumblebee had to make this a contest of hands, as much as he could. So he struck and stuck and stuck like a mad thing, the sound of the blows like a wrecking ball, while overhead birds flocked the skies like a living cage.

-----------------------------------------

"_Now, very gently move aside the thick blue wire,_" Ratchet advised. "_Very gently, Mikaela. That wire is what, in humans, would be a major artery. I'm very attached to it."_

"Right," Mikaela gently moved the wire, and held out her hands to Glen, who was assisting. "Pliers. God, I never wanted to be a surgeon, just a mechanic."

"_To a Cybertonian, you would be both. Now, get ready to remove the implant._"

"Can you last without this thing?" Glen asked, sweating. They both froze as they medic jolted over a bump. "I mean, don't you need it?" They said after the moment of terror had passed. It was rather like performing surgery in an earthquake.

"_We have several, and this one is the smallest. I can fashion a new one. I'm glad of humans at the moment. This would have been impossible for me to do on myself, it would have taken hours to take one from on of the others, and we'd have had to have been in a lab somewhere. It's rather frightening, having surgery done while still awake._"

"Thanks for doing this, Ratchet," Mikaela said gratefully. "You're very brave."

Ratchet made a little humming sound. "_Not really. Besides, this is only a part of it. We'll need to get a component from Bumblebee as well. Keep your hands steady there_," Ratchet advised shakily. "_Nice and steady._"

"Right," Mikaela whispered.

In Ironhide, things were just as tense. "What the hell is that?" Epps cursed, looking at the sky through the back window, which was increasingly filled with black dots. It was getting near sunrise now, and they were getting easier to see.

"_Do avian's usually do that on this planet?"_ Ironhide asked curiously.

"Hell no," Lennox replied grimly.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Simmons added darkly.

"_Ironhide, can you feel it? Stretch out with your sensors._" Optimus broke in over the radio.

Ironhide did. "_Slag!_"

"What? What is it?" Lennox broke in.

"_Cube energy, Captain,_" Optimus answered.

"_A lot of Cube energy_," Ironhide added. "_A hell of a lot._"

"_Is that a problem?_" Maggie's voice came over the radio from Optimus.

The Autobots took a moment to answer. Eventually Optimus spoke. "_I don't know. I have not had wide experience with the Allspark. Most of what we know about it has been lost throughout the centuries. I do know it has never been quite so…so powerful in the air than this before. As far as I know it has never attracted living things before_."

Simmons groaned. "So basically we've got an alien force that not even aliens understand running loose on our planet? That's just great. Perfect. Say, why don't we just do a mass human race suicide. With you NBE's running around, it pretty much amounts to the same thing."

"Shut it," Lennox snapped. "Optimus? What can we do?"

"_Whatever we can, Captain._"

"_Incoming aerial vehicle,_" Ironhide broke in. "_They are trying to hail. Hang on, I'll match up a frequency."_

Lennox peered out of a window, and spotted the Black Hawk hovering ahead of them, spotlighting Optimus, who lead the rest.

"…_in, ground forces, come in. Do you read? Try a different frequency amigo._"

"Figg, that you man?" Epps called from the back.

"_Epps, good to hear your voice. You in the big guy in the front?_"

"Middle sized guy in the middle. Good to hear from you Sergeant," Lennox said from the front while Ironhide muttered an insulted "_middle-sized!_" in the background. "How's the leg."

"_My mama's home medicine, it's doing it the world of good, Cap'n._"

"Good to hear. What the sitrep?"

"_Last report indicated three aliens now in the clearing – originally only two, but one more just arrived. We assume at least one of them is friendly, but we haven't been able to get a clear view of the situation – the birds are making it impossible to get close, and infrared keeps going in and out. Something down there is generating more heat than mama's famous 'gator chilli. Source unknown_. _There are four other air supports ranged around the clearing, waiting for a clear spot. Two transports have landed and are clearing a path – the _ave_ aren't the only one's coming to watch. It's a zoo down there, apparently._"

"Direct us to the cleared path, we'll pick up troops as we go. Please be advised that there are human civilian hostages involved, so no one is to engage without direct orders," Lennox ordered.

"_Comprendes, Capitane._"

"_I have a question,_" Maggie asked. "_If one of them is Starscream, and I'm assuming one is Bumblebee…who's the third guy?_"

---------------------------------------------------------

Miles did run; skirting around the two tussling mechs on the ground as widely as he could, he moved toward the sparking, burning side of the clearing where Sam was still inching along doggedly, sparks arcing and dying in turns. The stench of ozone was thick in the air.

Running until the he reached the edge of burnt earth, Miles slowed enough to think about how to approach. It looked like he'd get zapped if he did it wrong. "Sam! Hey, Sam!" He yelled, but Sam couldn't him over the sound of the two fighting robots and the crackling of the bolts which danced and leapt.

Something landed directly behind him with enough force to knock him face first into the ground. With a hard roll Starscream had knocked Bumblebee to the bottom of their wrestling match, one out-flung hand coming down inches from swatting Miles like a fly. Miles scurried out of the way as Starscream brought a cannon around to shoot Sam, which was knocked upwards by Bumblebee before he could take the shot.

Miles sprinted for safety. If the mech's rolled again in the right direction, they would flatten both Sam and him. They were so close now that arcs jumped and danced across their outstretched hands, skittering harmlessly before vanishing. Bumblebee slammed Starscream with every limb that could get a blow in, arms, legs, head to keep Starscream from moving again. He was losing his advantage underneath because Starscream was bigger and heavier.

Miles was so engrossed is watching his best friend's car struggle that he literally tripped over Jazz as he moved – rolling over from his face plant, he froze as the giant face slowly looked down at him. Sam hadn't managed to fry the box yet, but his periodic blasts had been enough to interrupt it's control over the silver mech. Jazz had stopped still once the control had gone, lost and disorientated. With memory chips gone he had no procedures or sense of self to tell him how to act. He simply turned his optics from the two fighting mech's to Sam and the box, and then looked down at the puny thing that had bumped into him, struggling for comprehension.

Miles watched the big alien machine check his surroundings, watching the fight, and Sam, and him in turn. Something about the hesitant movements gave him pause. This one didn't seem to want to fight, he seemed confused and disorientated. Biting his lip, Miles took a gamble. "Hey," he croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Hey, you! Hey!" he waved to get Jazz's attention. "Can you understand me?" He yelled up.

An eternity passed before Miles received an almost timid nod. In the clearing, Bumblebee had Starscream around the neck, and was twisting savagely, doing his level best to twist the evil mech's head right off.

"Can you pick me up and take me the Sam? You know, pick me up," Miles made a scooping motion with his hand. "And take me over there, to that person there?" He pointed to Sam who had stilled, not yet at his goal. His pace was inches at a time, and whatever strength he had left was flagging. "Do you understand?"

The silvery alien seemed to think about it and then reached down slowly with one hand. Miles climbed aboard gingerly. "Take me there, understand?"

Turning, Jazz slowly made his way over, much like a sleepwalker. Miles called encouragement for every slow step. "That's it, that's it, keep heading towards that thing there…careful of the sparks…hey, curl your fingers just a little bit, like this….that's it…Sam! Hey Sam! Come on bud, speak to me! Sam!"

Sam's eyes opened. He stopped to rest, because his body hadn't given him any choice in the matter. Sucking in an agonized breath, he looked up blearily and saw a gigantic hand hovering over him. It took him a moment to realize whose hand, and also that it had a passenger. Jazz? Miles? He tried to say, but nothing came out past his dust dry throat. "_Miles_?" he choked up wheezily.

"Sam, thank God. Hey, can you get me closer?" he yelled over his shoulder to the kneeling Jazz.

Sam tried to yell out not to come closer, but the bolts leapt free with no warning, jabbing and earthing in every direction. Miles ducked behind a barrier of Jazz's fingers. After the shocks had passed. Sam lay wheezing on the ground, coughing past the vice where his heart used to be.

"Sam! Are you okay? Sam!" Miles hair was standing on end, but Jazz's hand had shielded him from the worst of it.

"_Box…me…Box…_" Sam jabbed one shaking hand at the Evil Box desperately trying to convey meaning without words. He had to have faith that Miles knew him well enough to trust him.

He did. Miles turned around and yelled instructions to Jazz that were incomprehensible to Sam in his current state, but he felt the earth under him undulate gently as Jazz's fingers scooped him off the ground and into the air, dirt straining away as he rose. Sam peered through the slightly open finger spans and saw the box swing close as Jazz stretched his arm.

With a bone rattling jolt, Sam was thrown off the hand to land on top of the box. A cannon blast had caught Jazz in the back and knocked him face first into the ground. The hand holding Miles had been clutched near his shoulder, and had been trapped underneath him as he fell.

In the clearing Bumblebee roared; an inconceivable sound wave of fury rushed past his voice capacitor, and slammed his cannon into Starscream's chest plate and fired, and fired, and fired, until the Decepticon was literally blasted back off the smaller mech. Bumblebee rose like a tide of lava, grabbed two handfuls of Starscream and bodily flung him across the clearing where he landed in a tangled heap.

Sam opened his eyes and gritted his teeth. He planted both his hands on the Box on which he lay, and breathed in.

He was far more complicated than a mere breath. It drew in more than air, his body filled with power that was more than just a spark. All around him, the earth rippled at he drew in the energy of every living thing around him. A miasmic glow burned across his skin, so full of force that he levitated off the ground.

At the other end of clearing, birds dove and swept at Starscream, so many that it was a living black feathered mass, diving and harrying and clawing, so thick the Starscream was just a shapeless mass beneath it.

Bursting out from the trees came the Autobot's and humans alike, cannons and guns at the ready. In one moment of confusion, Ratchet tackled Bumblebee to the ground and flipped open his chest plate while the yellow mini-bot made a noise of absolute surprise.

"Sorry Bee, need to get something," Ratchet plunged a hand in with none of his usual finesse, yanking loose what looked like a small metal band from close to Bumblebee's spark. "Perfect." He slapped Bee's plate closed and took off.

Bumblebee stared after him. "???" He then levered himself back up, and took off after Ratchet and Mikaela who were heading with grim determination toward Sam, while Optimus, Ironhide and the soldiers tackled Starscream.

Sam, standing in his column of light, breathed out.

The world whited out.

Power, all Megatron could have ever hoped for, poured through him like water and earthed into the box. Crackling arcs of lightly swung and spun, cracking like whips over the forest and up into the sky, a massive pillar of light and sound like a new, small sun.

Megatron – on whatever dull copy of Megatron had been in that memory box, vanished. He wasn't blown up on broken down – he turned into dust and disappeared, removed from existence like an unwanted thought.

The immense conflagration simply shot straight into the earth, fanning out to take up the whole clearing, engulfing the beings in there in burning white light. Arced bolts lashed at anyone who came near Sam, who floated in the centre, wreathed in white fire. The world roared and shook, ready to come apart.

Ratchet was nearly overtaken by Bumblebee, who seemed to have no trouble with the sparks like the others were. Ratchet, shielding Mikaela, thrust an internal energy conduit to Bumblebee, along with the ring-like power dischargers he'd removed from the yellow 'Bot just moments before.

"Stick the implant in his heart, the conduits on his arms. Do it! It's the only way to save him!"

Bumblebee dove through the sparks and lights, curling one hand around the frail human, and thrusting with pinpoint precision with the other, implanting the conduit into Sam's chest, and threading the arms through the rings.

The light folded back, the bolts died, and Sam dropped into Bumblebee's grip limply, and the world held it breath for an agonizing moment before the boy drew in a living breath of air.

Things happened. Starscream used the blinding light to cover his retreat straight into the air. Mikaela ran crying to join Bumblebee as Ratchet began checking Sam's unconscious body. Birds and animals alike scattered as choppers landed. Miles was tugged from beneath Jazz, the cup of the 'Bot's fingers forming a safety cage around him and keeping the boy from harm when Jazz's weight fell. Chaos reigned.

They had won the day.

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	10. Epilogue

Disclaimer: For the last time, Transformers, sigh, don't belong to the author of this free work of fiction – though it would certainly improve the ol' bank balance sheet if they did.

Oh, and the lyrics Bee uses at the very end are 'High Voltage' by Linkin Park. Appropriate, I thought…

Warnings: Slight bad language, adult and supernatural themes

Authors: Yaaaaaaaaaay! Finished! My regulars, assuming I have any left, must be falling over from shock! It only took nearly two years and almost to the sequel!

Please, read, review, enjoy!

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Epilogue

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It was a surprisingly gloomy group that had settled on the big empty tarmac next to the choppers while clean up crews went hither and thither, dispatched to various locales to take readings and records before carefully erasing all traces. They sat on the ground or perched on Black Hawk rails, watching the Air Force officers go about the usual morning routine, ignoring any curious stares directed their way. Every so often, a new chopper would land in the distance and important looking people would be escorted inside the big hanger nearby.

"_arrg…"_

"How do you think he's doing?" Maggie asked, biting her thumbnail.

Silence greeted her for a while. Eventually Lennox stirred from where he rested against the landing skids of one of the crafts. "Sam's a fighter. He survived twelve hours captured by a hostile. Ratchet is helping with the energy. He'll be fine."

"What the hell was that energy, anyway? The Cube didn't do anything like that when it was in the dam," Glen pointed out.

"Ratchet said that maybe the Allspark sort of…jumped inside Sam, to save itself," Mikaela said softly. She lay flat on the ground, one arm shielding her eyes from the sun. She sounded exhausted. "I don't know. Maybe we really didn't know what the Cube could do."

"Seems like nobody does, alien or not," Epps grunted from where he sat on the tarmac.

Silence reigned again.

"_Ouch, Ratchet, watch where you're putting that!"_

"I think…" Glen said slowly. "Yes, I'm fairly sure….that was the single worst night of my life. Yes, I think we have a winner, never to be displaced."

Maggie snorted. "What about when you got shot at in the bunker?"

"Yes, but that just happened in the vicinity. This time I…" Glen paused to rub at his eyes. "I actually, _voluntarily_ took part in the madness. I don't know what that does to anyone else's centre of peace and tranquility, but the words 'atomic blast' is the only way I can describe mine now. God, I may never sleep again."

"_Yeowch, Ratchet, what the hell are you doing back there?"_

"Hey, you did good," Epps patted the hacker's shoulder. "I could have done without the girly whining, but you did good."

"That wasn't whining, that was injection of otherwise perfectly rational sanity into the anarchy of the military mindset. Why do you think I stopped working for you guys the first time?"

"You worked in Black Ops, amigo?" Figg raised an eyebrow is disbelief.

Glen sighed. "What can I say? Hack into the defense network at seven years old, and people pay attention."

Silence.

"_Ratchet, for the love of Primuaaaaooow!"_

"He really did," Maggie nodded to their stares. "Most government agencies the world over have a file on Glen which is a minimum of six inches thick."

"So…why weren't you on hand from the beginning of the Qatar attack?" Epps asked.

Glen sighed. "Honestly, mis-fire one little missile…"

"You nearly obliterated Taiwan," Maggie muttered in a _sotto voce_.

"…and everyone takes it personally."

"You know what really worries me? I didn't see one spark come off Sam after the implant went in. I thought it was just supposed to redirect the Allspark, not obliterate it," Lennox looked down at Mikaela.

"It was," Mikaela said tiredly. She'd just gotten off the phone with her father, and whatever reserves of strength she had left were rapidly vanishing. "Ratchet isn't sure what happened. Optimus said that Bumblebee reckons the Cube energy is everywhere at the moment. I don't know what that means."

"It's went into the earth, is what it means. I used to sense the power, exactly where it was, but now it's all over the place…" Figg shrugged. "My Mama, she had the sight. Maybe she'd know better than me."

"Oh, come on man," Epps snorted.

"How d'you think I found you? Didn't get no reports from central. Just went where the sight took us."

"Jesus man, I ain't never letting you drive us anywhere, ever," Epps moaned. "Are you seriously telling me you based an entire covert op based on some stupid ass third sight?"

Figg just grinned.

"_Ow! Ow! Ratchet, slag it, where did you get your medical degree, from the disposal? Yeeowww!"_

Mikaela stared at the sky. "I wonder what they'll do with Jazz now. It's so weird to see him still like that."

Silence.

"They'll keep him in a bunker somewhere for now. Ratchet only put him in sleep mode – stasis, I suppose - until the flagship reaches the planet. Then they can use his last memory record to restore most of the rest of his memories, assuming they can replace his parts. Technically the Autobots have no such condition as amnesia – they keep personal record banks for every stage of their…" Glen trailed off in the face of their looks. "What? Didn't anyone else read the info packs the PhD's put together?"

"_Ow!_"

"Food!" Miles rolled up with a wheeling tray full of sandwiches.

"Thank you God!" Glen grabbed four and rolled the tray along.

Mikaela had sat upright. "Sam,"

"Is fine, as far as I know. His parents have been let in to see him, they just rolled up." For some reason a smirk crept across his face.

Simmons staggered up, clutching his face. "That woman is a god damn menace!" One of his eyes was swollen shut.

"Sam's Mom decked him," Miles snickered through his mouthful.

"What the hell did I do to her? Nothing!" Simmons snarled.

Lennox smirked. "Must just be your winning personality."

"_AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGG!!_"

Simmons jumped. "What the hell was that?"

The enormous hanger doors slid open, revealing a triumphant Ratchet holding an impossibly deformed piece of shrapnel. "Got it!"

The humans gave him a resounding applause.

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Sam opened his eyes, and looked around the white room. His most recent memories were vague and dreamlike. He dimly remembered a room, much larger then this, with a cavernous, corrugated roof high above his head, where the sounds echoed up past hearing. He remembered seeing Optimus, Bee and Ratchet segue in and out of his field of vision, and a lot of people in lab coats. He remembered his parents faces, looking washed out and white.

And now he was here, gloriously pain free and relaxed. It was a nice small room with no other patients, no noisy walkways and no insane, evil alien robots. Heaven.

After a while, he glanced lazily out the window, and to his surprise there was a big, blue eyed face watching him. "Bee!" He crowed happily. "Hey Bee, how's it going?"

He swung his legs off the bed and, ignoring Bumblebee high speed whistles of protest, stood – or at least, swayed alarmingly on his feet. Using the IV stand to nominally steady himself, he made the pilgrimage to the window and Bumblebee's frantic face. The 'Bot shooed futilely outside the window, a harsh matronly sound byte issuing the command "_Back into bed with you, young man!_"

"I'm not tired Bee," Sam said cheerfully, stumbling within sight of his goal and was saved only by Bee's massive finger hastily stuck through the open window to catch him. "Thanks bud. The floor's a little bit funky right now."

"_Back into bed!_" Bee tried again, in vain.

"In a minute," Sam waved a finger. "There was something I wanted you to know… uh… gimme a minute…." Sam rubbed his face, feeling lightheaded. "Oh, yeah. Bee," Sam made an effort to straighten his wobbly knees. "I'm really, really glad I didn't kill you, Bee. I'm sorry if I hurt you. I was just so glad I didn't kill you, when I saw you."

Bumblebee gave a soft croon, and gently crooked his finger, so his fingertip brushed the tear tracks running down his friends face. "_I am okay,_" the cracked syllables were just clear enough. "_You are okay. Everything is okay._"

"Yeah." Sam sighed.

"Christ on a crutch," Lennox cursed as he came in. "You, back into bed and you," he waved at the 'Bot. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Do the words 'top secret' mean anything to you? This is the second floor of a civilian hospital, will you please become a car and act like a car?" He chivvied the 'Bot out of the window, and steered Sam back towards the bed firmly.

"Hey, we were talking there. It's all good," Sam protested mildly as he was definitively returned to his post.

"Wow, they must have you on the good stuff, kid," Lennox seemed amused.

"All good," Sam smiled muzzily while the Captain chuckled. "Hey, what happens now? I mean, since I channeled an extraterrarrarrestrial force and all?"

"Extraterrarrarrestrial?" Lennox repeated, trying in vain to restrain a smile.

"Right, that thing."

"Well, no one is going to lock you up in a lab somewhere, if that's what you're asking. We've spent the last two days arguing with half the Pentagon and having lots of fancy degree holders have a look. As far as they can tell there's no alien force inside you, and as far they can tell there never was," Lennox scrubbed a hand through his hair. "You've got an Autobot part implanted close to your heart, like a pacemaker," he tapped Sam's chest gently with a finger. "They also put two little discs about the size of a dollar coin in the palms of your hands, to conduct and disperse any more sparks safely. Ratchet says that it's just to be sure. Apparently there's no more sparks that they can find anymore," Lennox shot the kid a sideways look. "I don't suppose you have any hints?"

Sam stared at the far wall, lost in thought. "Content and container."

"Huh?"

"Hey dude, 'sup?" Miles said cheerfully as he bounced in.

"Miles?" Sam sat up. "Hey, you were there!" He remembered, almost incidentally. Suddenly his jaw dropped open. "You were _there_?! Cripes, you weren't hurt or anything, were you? How the hell did you get there? What happened? I thought it was just some crazy ass vision!"

"I wish! If this were a dream, my bruises wouldn't hurt. You suck, you know," Miles added.

Sam winced. "I know." He stared at his best human friend, searching for anything bad in his expression. Guilt hit him sharper than the electricity ever could.

"You really, truly suck. You can be such an ass."

"I know. Sorry." Sam managed weakly.

"That's okay. Riding around in an alien is absolutely made of awesome."

"Absolutely," Lennox nodded.

"It is, isn't it?" Sam agreed. He relaxed and truly, consciously smiled for the first time in a long time.

"You still suck, though." Miles turned the friendly punch into a mock-punch at the last minute. Sam looked utterly frail at the moment, inside and out. But he was smiling – it was a fragile smile, but it was a start.

Footsteps pounded down the hallway floor at a rapid sprint, the sound bouncing up and down the corridor.

"Aw, crap!" Miles ducked down under the bed. "Hide me! I jumped in the elevator to get here first, she must have taken the stairs!"

She burst in, dark hair flying around, smiling like a loon, and didn't say anything. She didn't need to. Mikaela just kissed him, hard and long, and reminded him that warmth and love and kindness was still in the world.

The fact that she reached down and swatted Miles across the back of the head without looking was a mere anomaly.

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Sam wasn't sure why he'd come here – to this dark place on their dry field where he met Mikaela and the Autobots every chance he got. The clear night sky looked down at him.

"Hello?" he called vaguely. "Are you there?"

In the sky, he remembered, in the sky, galaxy upon galaxy spun and danced to the beat. He remembered that endless, beautiful, golden beat, dear and sweet to him, connecting him to everything and everyone.

Why had he come here? Sam tried to remember. He couldn't remember much about the clearing, and the light, and the way he had felt that great, slow, immeasurable powerful pulse of the entire planet beneath his feet. He smiled slightly – he wasn't wired for it, was he?

"Are you…" Sam stopped. Here, in this dreamlike state, it was all so clear. It _was_ there. It always had been, is now, and ever shall be. He breathed in, pulling the feeling of it, the Allspark, all around him, under him, over him, before and after him, filling him with wonderful, immeasurable, unthinkable joy….

"Sam?"

Sam opened his eyes. Daylight, a clear and warm blue sky day met him, with the sizzle of the grill in the background, punctuated by rumbles and rattles and murmurs of the others mingling in the very clearing Sam had just been in – inside his head.

Actually, it may have been more complicated than that. Who knows?

Soldiers, alien and human, various parental figures and hangers on all milled about, cheerfully trading my-story-is-much-worse-that-yours stories over food, drinks, and some mysterious cube-shaped things the Autobots passed back and forth. Maggie and Sam's mother clucked over the little baby in Sarah Lennox's arms, while Ironhide kept a proprietary eye on them – Will Lennox looked thoroughly amused by it. The soldiers all compared war stories, and the Autobots looked like they were winning the contest. Centuries churned out more stories than decades.

"You okay bud?" Miles raised an eyebrow from where he lay, legs and torso upside down against the tree trunk, shoulders and head on the ground – Miles simply could not let his reputation as a weirdo lag. Mikaela found him as funny as hell. She sat normally, back against the tree, Sam's head resting on her shins. Mikaela also looked at him, eyes warm and faintly concerned. Ten-something feet above, Bumblebee looked down from where he sat, not-quite-but-almost hovering.

Sam glanced over to where the 'Bots and the humans traded cultures and as easily as if they had known each other for years. Optimus glanced back from where he stood, demonstrating some his weaponry to Figg and Epps, and Sam gave him a nod. He'd tried to explain what had happened to the 'Bots and his friends – but the first thing he'd said was he really didn't understand it himself. He hadn't told Lennox and definitely not Simmons; but he could see in the soldier's eyes when he gave out a heavily edited version that the spark had burned out of him that the soldier knew he edited and was glad he had.

The version he had given the Bots was this – give us a few years. Give us a few years to really understand how you work. Once we really understand, and once you _really_ understand us….Bumblebee won't be the last. Here, the Cybertrons can really be reborn.

This planet was an Allspark. Not because of Sam, and what had happened, not because the content and container had switched once again in that white, world-shaking conflagration and the Cube Allspark had earthed into…well, Earth, although that had helped Sam to understand. It was because every planet, every cold, inhospitable rock that had ever circled a distant star, was an Allspark in the making. It had the ability to create life.

And now, Earth had the power of two Allsparks at it's core. More than enough for all who lived there now. Enough to put life where it had never been before on Earth. But life was designed to change and adapt, so that was okay. And if anyone tried to take that power – well, they'd have enemies of pure badassness to deal with. The Autobots had lost too much, and humans had too much to lose.

Sam smiled. "Yeah, bro', I'm good."

Mikaela bent down to look at him closely. "You sure?"

Sam kissed her. "Perfect." He grinned.

Bumblebee leaned back. "_Many men have tried to shake us, But I twist mic cords to double helixes and show them what I'm made of_…"

Sam laughed. "Yeah, Bee. That's it exactly."

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The End


End file.
